Tantapik goes to Singapore

IrfanSyafik and I are joining a school trip to Singapore for two days.

As usual, I don’t feel excited counting the days down. I have never been to Singapore before, except a few times transit at the Changi Airport.

And now. I am at Singapore again, with IrfanSyafik.

I had a short nap last night, as I was doing the last minute packing. I am the one who doesn’t believe in early packing because one hour before leaving the house, I will always check again in and out the baggage. Since this is a two-day trip, I don’t put much time and effort completing the checklist given by the coordinating teacher.

Abah sends us to school as early as 2.45 in the morning. Lots of people already there but some are still on their way. When everybody is there,  Ustaz says a prayer for a safe journey to and fro. The bus leaves at 3.20 in the morning. We reach LCCT, and stay in a group. Despite their sleepiness, the kids look so inpatient to be on board as this is the very first time for almost all of them, and some of the teachers as well. IrfanSyafik sees McDonald and asks for iced cream. We leave the group and go to McDonald. I buy a set of fillet-o-fish. IrfanSyafik is okay when the cashier told him there is no iced cream in service. We go back to our group and I ask IrfanSyafik to have his breakfast before we enter the gate. Unfortunately, IrfanSyafik only wants the fries! We go back to the McDonald, another minutes of queue, and only to find that they don’t have the fries at that point of time., but instead they replace it with hashbrown, which IrfanSyafik never take before. IrfanSyafik starts to sulk. *my insanity level raises up to orange*. Then I drag him to Marry Brown, and thank god they sell fries. There goes IrfanSyafik ’s smile. *and mine too*

                                                                                                                                                                   

The boarding passes are distributed to the group members and the collected passports returned for individual boarding. And now, we are heading to the gate and to Air Asia plane.

So much for the first-timers, the kids are so excited when the flight goes sky high. They even shouting during the take-off. I feel like we are the only passengers inside. This is not the first time for IrfanSyafik , but this is the first time he behave in air plane. He buckles the seatbelt and let the window opens, and never stand on the seat during the one hour journey. Good boy IrfanSyafik.

We landed safely at Changi Airport. The sun rises. We passed the immigration checking and walk our way to a meeting point where we meet our designated tourist guide of the day. We have our bus ready and have breakfast at Kg Glam for a plate of nasi lemak and a glass of tea. We cannot ask for more as this is under the budget. So if you need a hot coco instead of the caffeine, you may ask the seller but it will be at your own cost. In kg Glam, there is a royal malay palace, but we can only view from distance. It starts to drizzle. But it is okay for me as days before, the weather was very hot in Seremban.

We then heading to the place of the ultimate destination of the trip – Universal Studios. The bus stops at the underground bus bay. There are so many buses and coaches arriving as early as 10 in the morning. Those busses can only drop passengers off and must leave the place for another incoming busses. After about a hundred metres walking, we then get an escalator to get on to surface. In front of our very own eyes : UNIVERSAL STUDIOS SINGAPORE. Some are happy to see the sun, some are happy for at last safely reached the destination after the car-bus-plane-bus journey, some are happy to reach there after a lot of effort put on the working papers and hassle dealing with the travel agent (I heard Cikgu Erma shouts ‘at last!’), some are happy because they see their friends are happy.

We get our tickets printed. Queue up towards the entrance and get together in a small sub-group determined earlier. I get myself a pram for 10SD. I anticipate IrfanSyafik will be asking me to carry him, and that he will get asleep halfway through the park. 10SD is worthwhile, to exchange with the tiredness, irritated, sour face, and the fun I am going to missed for the day. The tourist guide told us while on the bus, to experience the park anti-cloclwise, which is, follow the right path. The right path will leads us to attractions better than the left path. Okay, now I understand, when you go anti-clockwise, you shall see a lots of people, a lot more compare to the the other side of the park. Let me tell you what the park has to offers you clockwise : 3D Movies from Transformers, Cylon or Human Rollercoaster from BattlestarGalactica, another rollercoaster from The Mummy, raft adventures from Jurassic Park, 4D Movies from Shrek of Far Far Away, low-adrenalin rollercoaster from Madagascar. Along with the mentioned anchor attraction, there are also some small scale attraction in some section, and some live-show from real characters from the movies. We managed to watch Sesame Street Show and Madagascar Dancing Show. The penguins are super cute!

Roller Coaster? YES!. The last time I get my adrenaline rushed was during the Solero Shots in Genting Highland. Since then, I’ve never get into any kind of test-your-guts thingy, due to health constraint, and the fact that we don’t choose amusement park for a vacation because of small kids we have.

Looking high at the blue and red tracks intercepting each other, I am telling myself that this is going to be fun. I asks around if anybody wants to feel that thrill. The responses I get are negative, until Meerza’s brother answers ‘no problem’. Yeah.. here we go. Meerza, Meerza’s brother and I, we get into the entrance. We cannot be accompanied with any loose belongings. not even shilling in your pocket. Luckily it was still early, so we take about 15 minutes to finally arrive to the end of the queue. My heart starts to doubt. Is it for real, that I am here, ready to be on a roller-coaster with ‘no coaster’?. Yes, this is a no coaster rollercoaster!. You have your seat hold from the top, and your legs are free… hanging on the air! There were two boys and their maid queuing in front of us. The boys have been experiencing the rollercoaster for 7 and 11 times respectively. This time they asked their maid to come along!

Three of us are so lucky to be on the first row. about three minutes (which I feel like forever), we complete the cycle… with myself imbalance… and queasiness… but I have no doubt to be in the line again for another ride… I am telling you that this is a ride of a lifetime! I missed a ride in Six Flags Magic Mountain years ago… but I want to believe that this is equally fun!.

Then I was told that Cikgu Falisa and Cikgu Zul also get onto that rollercoaster. Good Job teachers!. Nothing beats the fun, and that pays off the ticket!

After getting wet in the Jurassic Park raft adventure, it is already past the lunch time, tired, and subgroups become a few more sub-groups. When everybody is queuing to get on the raft, IrfanSyafik is having a time of his own at the dinosaur fountain. He gets his shirt off and tries to get his pants off too. This costs me 9.9SD on a plain black short with small print of Universal Studio. Oh god. Soon after he gets his body temperature low, he agrees to stop and change shirt. We just get aside of the fountain and change. Then, IrfanSyafik doesn’t want to put on his wet shoes. I did bring a spare crocs slipper, but I left it in the bus. And, this costs me another stupid 12.9SD for a plain slipper with Madagascar printed. Oh God Oh God. One hour later he sleeps.

When we split into a few small groups, we made our own ways. As for me and sleeping IrfanSyafik , we watch the Madagascar Dance,  Madagascar movie, I try to wake IrfanSyafik up for rollercoaster but he prefers to continue sleeping. The rest of the attractions are merely for children. We then bump into Umi Nora’s group. I stay with them. I ask Lynn’s mother if they want to enter the Transformer, but she replied “no, I don’t want to enter anything else!”. Lynn gives her mother a very hard time. She sometime naughtily pinch or slap IrfanSyafik for no reason.

We meet each other again near the exit at 5.30. everybody is so damn tired and hungry. Only some of us had our lunch. So while waiting for the bus to fetch us, some of us go to the Malaysian Food Street just outside the Universal Studio to find some mamak tasteful food. Me, I just finished the Fillet-o-fish I bought at the LCCT before we boarded.

We get on the bus to go to Johor Bahru. I never thought that crossing the border could be that hard. After getting through a two-hour heavy traffic jam, we need to get off the bus with passport and immigration card and walk to the immigration checking at Woodland. Then get on the bus which already checked and waiting at the other side of the immigration checking point. Then again, after crossing the tambak, we need to get off the bus, this time with  ALL our belongings and being check by immigration on Malaysia side. I feel sorry for the kids but they are doing great! They can follow instruction and managed to get through both checkpoints by minimal supervision.

Finally we can see beds and pillows. After shower, we had our dinner - packed food sent to each room, and sleep. The tv, Singapore channel tcs5, is showing the live FA Cup football match between Lion12 and ATM. The matched ended in a draw. We stay in a room of four. I am sharing room with Ustazah, IrfanSyafik and Atilah. Since Athilah sleeps on the comforter on the floor, three of us get some space to share the bed. We get a room with no view. No window. Just when I look at the evacuation map, I found out that our room is right in the middle of the building, surrounded by other rooms. Wow, I call that engineering disaster.

The next morning we wake up fresh, although my right foot cramps once during the sleeping. Athilah wants to have hot Milo for a breakfast so I go down at the hotel’s café. The worker asks me to get a coupon to exchange with breakfast. I tell him I already have my ration and I want to buy something extra. Another worker approaches and asks me to do the same. I asks if they don’t accept cash, but their reply is “if you can pay by coupon why do you want to pay cash”. They don’t understand when I say I already have my guest breakfast ration. I return to the receptionist and get some advice from her. “you just walk across the street and but 3-in-1 sachet. It only costs you rm1. You can get hot water from the water dispenser near the elevator. If you buy from the cafeteria, it will costs you double”. I walk across and buy three sachets of Milo 3-in-1, two boxes of UHT, and buns. Cikgu Aziah segregate the packed breakfast to rooms. We have our breakfast and get ready for second round trip to Singapore.

The bus is ready. And so are we. There are some misunderstanding with the travel agent. We then also having problem to have lunch. I understood that the travel agent should provide us a place for lunch that can occupy the whole group. We ended up having a mcDonald chicken burger and 2 breads for each person for lunch. The mcDonald burger needs to be finished before the border, as any fastfood cannot go across the border. (Actually, I successfully did this twice!)

We are then have a bus ride tour around Singapore. We go along Woodlands, Toa Payoh/Paya Lebar, Geylang, Tanjung Katong, Formula 1 Circuit, Jln Arab, Singapore City and to Changi Airport. In Singapore City we drop by the 1Billon dollar Botanical Garden. This garden is self-fertelized using composed leaves from the same garden. And we complete our trip by stopping by the Merlion. From the Merlion site, we can see all significant landmarks of Singapore City - the Marina Bay, the Durian Art Museum, and the Singapore Flyer.

We reached Changi Airport and ready to go home. But the group split into three group of different flights. My flight will be departing at 11 pm, the latest among the three. In the same group of mine, we have 2 mothers, 5 teachers and the rest are kids that makes up 19 of us. And we have the biggest number of people in our group. I dont mind being in the last group though I heard some complaint from other parents. As for me, either way we still need to wait until all of us reached LCCT to take the bus to go back to Seremban. Thinking of that, I would prefer to wait in the International Airport of Changi rather than in LCCT. There are so many things to do, so many things to see and so many places to see. The toilets are so much cleaner.
I was running out of Singapore cash and the Dunkin' Donuts did not accept American Express when Guru Besar offers me help by exchanging her dollar with some rm of mine.

We have dinner, take a walk, and then go to the gate, and on the plane. We safely reach LCCT 10 minutes before midnight. We reach school almost 2 am.

For this kind of program, we, the participants, just need to follow without asking too much and never ever be selfish.
It is a good trip. I must congratulate the teachers for their dream, effort and success. 46 people for an international trip. 46 is a large number. And it is larger than you could imagine when half of it are kids with special needs.