The Wrong Place To Be
Ever knew how it feels to be at a wrong place at a wrong time? Well, I did, just today. And before someone ask, no, I DID NOT take the picture above. In fact, it was what I was avoiding. That’s the wrong place to be today.
It started on a normal Saturday afternoon where three folks including me was just going to spend a quiet afternoon to watch a movie, walk and eat some food. We went to Tiong Bahru Plaza at 5 pm to watch Dragon Tiger Gate (Long Hu Men, yes, that comic book you read in Indonesia too). As the movie ended shortly before 7 pm, it was too early to go home, so we decided to go take a walk to Esplanade Bay and eat there. What we didn’t know… it was the wrong place to be today…
When we went by MRT to City Hall, we already noticed something was wrong. Okay, it was weekend. MRTs are usually full on weekends but NOT this full. We even have to wait one more train because the first one was too full for us to get in. When we arrived at City Hall MRT, we still didn’t know what was happening and kept walking to Esplanade Bay, until we saw there were likely some hundreds of thousand people in there! Then we realized Singapore just had its National Day on the 9th… and this… must be the fireworks party everyone in Singapore are waiting for. About more than 100,000 people (maybe we saw 200,000 to 250,000 in fact) sit in the ground with their blankets, waiting for the fireworks. Because we didn’t want to see it, we decided to move away from there.
We had to go against the tides and waves of people. Everyone wanted to go to Esplanade, while we were moving away from there. We reached the Marina Square, but ALL (yes, literally ALL) restaurant and eating places were full, so we in the end decided to take a long long walk away from Marina Square all the way to Funan. During the walk we were so hungry so when we saw ice cream peddlers, we stopped, twice, to buy ice creams to stuff our stomaches for a moment.
In the end, we arrived at Sushi Don at the bottom of Funan. We ordered a nice dinner of Japanese food and enjoyed a nice Saturday night afterwards, talking about many things that are happening around us, from politics to fun. The place was cozy, so we managed to enjoy ourself for about two hours, then we departed and go home by MRT in our separate ways.
Morale of the Story:
ALWAYS STAY HOME DURING NATIONAL DAY OR FIREWORK DISPLAYS… or go away from Esplanade area.
