chicken cutlet from a store named wow wow west, at bukit hawker ctr

jus last weekend, my brother and i headed for ubin wif camping provisions and high hopes for our treck at the island.



frm the jetty, we trecked to noordin beach only to find it under renovation. another sad singapore story of throwing away thebeauty it has (previously mentioned in my design academic paper)... this time its part of nature. and since there was also this injured dog there, prolly by irresponsible singaporean campers, we decided not to set camp there and headed for maman.



the dog, which i now refer to as lumpy, had large patch of hide torn off the back of its shoulders. burnt marks cld be seen on its fur arnd the wound and flesh. i suspect, a mix of vicious humans, solid fuel, open wound, flys & maggots and lottsa unhygenic dwelling conditions responsible for lumpy's unfortunate plight. i felt really bad for lumpy, and quite pissed at the animals, no... less than animals, that caused his pain. he was a good dog.



lumpy followed us through out the first half of our treck to maman beach. heading the way, he wld stop every once in while to wait, while we "caught up wif him". finally he had to stop, jus outside the territory of another grp of dogs. i pray he will be strong and heal up his wounds.



a hundred meters frm maman, the sky gave way to swollen clouds and it poured. i hurried my brother, jeremy, to the little shed, where the toilets were, for shelter. there, we ate two of the five cookies that my wonderful mom had packed for us. not before the passing of an hr, did the torrent subside into a drizzle. hastly we set up our tent on the sand and prepared dinner.

our dinner was made of instant noodles, tin tuna (in oil not ketchup), campbells cream of mushroom, button mushrooms and curry chicken. it was rather difficult to cook in the rain, the process took over two hrs but the results were more than satisfying. we slept early that night jus before nine.



rudely awaken by a dog sniffing arnd outside our tent, only an hr after i dozed into nod. i sat up and it ran off startled. i noted its muzzle, wasnt lumpy.

my brother sat up moments after it left, i guess he must hav had trouble sleeping for the excitement of camping for real and being pretty dissapointed wif us not having a camp fire. the drizzle had stopped and i allowed him out of the tent wif me. we played wif candles in the cool aftermath of rain, and hurried back into the tent when another round of pelting threatened. i planted "jiamin's lamp", a little lamp made out of the top of a plastic bottle placed over a candle in the sand - first made by my friend on one of my other trips to the island, jus outside our tent.



jeremy cldnt sleep nor cld i, since it soon became rather hot inside the tent. i opened the "door" of the tent in hope of better ventilation and yakked abit wif jeremy.

we were quite surprised and a little afraid when we saw lights and heard pple; only to findout, to our relief, that they were park rangers. they were jus checking the camping grnds and jus as surprised to see us there... we were the only ones. talked abit about the horrendous renovations taking place at both beaches/campsites after which they left and we slept, again.



it was four thirty sharp, according to jeremy's watch, when the strong sea winds picked up. waves of air rocked our tent on all sides. inside, it felt safe and the winds provided a nice air conditioning to our little lodging. the same happens always in a pulau ubin morning and memories of many other previous camps i had made at ubin flooded my mind. we dint sleep any more and once the winds had slowed, i made breakfast. plain oats never tasted better. along wif canned sausages and the remaining cookies we fill our hungry gullets.

the sun rose behind us as jeremy went out to burnt up the rest of his candles, matches and a small piece of fallen branch. i showed him how to skip stones over the water while he played wif sand. finally we packed our belongings and trecked back to the jetty.



note: i left a small pack of pyro supplies beihind an island in hope to find it again. if u go there u cld try to find it, itll be like a treasure hunt! its a ziplock plastic bag no bigger than a 4R photo. containing a burnt can lid, a piece of candle and slab of solid fuel.



that ended jeremy's first camp at ubin.