Sweaty Weather Either A

For once, I left the apartment before John went to work. I am one of those annoying morning people. I was wide awake before my alarm started ringing at ten minutes to eight and immediately rose from the bed. Ymir lied sleeping in the bathroom so I even woke up the cat. I fed the cat and I fed myself before anyone else started waking up.

Annika and I were attending one of SWEA's events that started nine at Sentosa Island. I had estimated that it would take us thirty minutes to get there with taxi (since the estimated time with subway and bus was over an hour). Unfortunately we left the apartment quarter to nine and so we were already destined to be late. When we finally arrived, after spending too much money getting there, there was no group waiting for us. We looked around for quite a while, asking people if they had seen a group of women walking past. They were not there, so we started walking with the sea on one side and amazing buildings on the other.

After a while we bumped into a group of women, speaking a language we recognised and asked them if they were SWEA. Yes, well of course they were. Most of them were dressed in gym-clothes but a few, just like Annika and I, wore regular clothes. There was no indication on the website that this was a power-walk, thus there seemed to be some confusion about the tempo. The group was between ten and fifteen women, but we only walked with four of them. Eventually they caught up and we met some of the others. Nobody was even close to my age. All of them were between thirty five and sixty. It is not that I can not hang out with people in that age since some of our friends here in Singapore are much older than we are, but my expectations had been where I thought I could at least meet one in my age and make a friend. One of them recommended a young woman living at d'Leedon and she could not be more than twenty five. Another gave me the number of her daughter who was apparently the same age as me (if not one year older or so).

The group came back to the point where they had started. Some left to go home and others wanted a fika. We decided to go to Joe & the Juice which I think is overpriced for small portions. Annika bought us each a juice and shared an avocado chicken sandwich. We sat down amongst our fellow countrymen and talked about things. The woman to my left talked about SWEA and tried to show me where dengue-cases had appeared in Singapore. She also tried to invite me to a group on Facebook but claimed that there was more information on the computer. I bit my tongue to not be rude and explain a thing or two. The woman to my right talked about moving to Singapore recently with her husband. She told me I looked like her sister's daughter (or something) and I had trouble understanding if that was something I could answer to. Our conversation was short. The two women then leaned over my chair to talked to each other about a family situation where left-woman's dad had gotten diagnosed with cancer. I felt like I could not interrupt and not join the conversation. It felt awkward and I felt in the way. Eventually I had enough and asked if the left-woman wanted to switch places so that I could talk to Annika. I asked if we could leave.

Annika and I explored the small east side of Sentosa Island. Lots of huge villas, most looking seemingly alike, not many looked like someone was living there. At the end of the island we saw the marina and the skyscrapers. To the left we saw a green area, possibly a golf course even though I failed to see any flags. There we saw a bird. It looked like a black pelican with shorter beak. Its wings were half folded and it had something sticky in its beak. It did not look well. We decided to go back the way we had come and find someone to tell. Annika explained the situation to a guard sitting in a little booth in the middle of the road. He said he would call and reached for his phone as we left, but when I looked back he was not on the phone. I did not trust him. It started to rain and we found shelter on a floating platform with a group of Indian workers. We stayed a little while for the rain to calm down and in the meantime we decided where to eat. Annika asked for the direction to the bus that would take us to the bridge over to HarbourFront.

On our way to the bus stop we walked to this door that I had noticed at our arrival that morning. It said Rangers and so we knocked to let them know about the bird. At first no one answered the door, but when we turned our backs two rangers opened it behind us. They seemed confused. I stammered an explanation, having been talking Swedish the whole day my English had not been warmed up, until Annika helped and made the errand quick. The ranger took my name and number. It felt like they cared and would go look for the bird. Unfortunately I never received any calls about this so I have no idea what happened to it.

At the bus Annika found four Danish women and indulged in a casual conversation. They told us where to get off and we followed them. I recognised where we were and said we should go the other way, but Annika wanted to follow the Danes since they seemed to know where they were going. For ten minutes we walked on a small walkway next to a busy highway. It stopped quite suddenly in the middle of the road with three lanes of traffic on either side of us. One of the Danes ran across to one side but there was no way out over there. We followed them to the right instead, where we could see a staircase, and thus walked swiftly across the street. I skipped ahead. I felt angry since I had been right about the way we should have gone and the stupid Danes led us to the middle of a road. Never trust Danes.

We made it to HarbourFront intact but I had gotten two large spots on my shirt right where it folded into my armpits. I had to get a new shirt. I hurried to Cotton:On and brought a bunch of shirts to the dressing-room. I picked two, two for twenty, bought them hastily and met Annika outside. We bought drinks and took the subway towards Chinatown. It was five minutes away so it went fast.

Of course we went back to our new favourite restaurant. It was Annika's last day here with us so we went to Genki Sushi. Please read this to understand what this restaurant means to us. It was a late lunch. I bought a package of their green tea and have to say it was the first tea I ever bought for myself. Then we split. Annika went to get massage somewhere and I headed home. I was really tired from an early morning and an active day. I declined going out again to have dinner with John and Annika and left them to eat dumplings in Holland Village by themselves. I regret not getting those delicious buns. My dinner was a sad bowl of yogurt and cereal.