Saturday, August 15, 2015

77. THE SG50 MRT 'MARATHON'

Singapore turned 50 this year, and it has been raining offers countrywide –Shops screaming out 50% discounts, concession for entertainments, museums, zoos, amusement parks and other activities -you are literally spoilt for choices. However, all these offers happen at the same time for a limited time, and you get so confused which ones to go for, that by the time you zero in on one, the offer is no longer valid. K


On the National Day, it was announced that we could enjoy free public transport the whole day. It was Sunday, and all I had scheduled for the day was church. Nothing much was planned for the evening, because the whole nation would be in celebration and plague like crowds were to be expected everywhere.

I was feeling a little guilty for not being able to utilize the free rides, except for the couple of trips to and from church. Little did I know this random crazy thought that zipped past my mind, would transform into a 5 hour long MRT-marathon.

Small as the country may be, there are still a lot of areas of Singapore that still remain to be explored by me. So I just thought of dragging a friend along and go to all the MRT stations, explore the area a bit and click a few pictures and chill. It took some effort and a lot of bull-crapping to get a friend to buy this idea –we would have to wait another 50 years to get a similar offer;  It would be a lifetime achievement; think about the money we could save and blah blah..

And that inspired him. Inspired him so much that in a couple of hours, he came along with two other friends, equipped with DSLR and a tripod! Woah looks like he took that a bit too seriously...

So off we went!

We still couldn’t get used to the open gantries. My hands kept reaching to my purse for the ez-link card as I approached the gantries




First Stop: Jurong East. The station was way too crowded and we had trouble finding a proper place to set up the tripod and the camera. So we contented ourselves with a selfie. The passerbys stared at us quizzically, trying to figure out what's there in an MRT sign board to take picture of!

Bukit Batok… Bukit Gombak….by the time we reached Choa Chu Kang, we were quite exhausted… that was only the 4th stop! We had 21 more to go!


The trains were mostly crowded. And just climbing up and down the escalator and running back to catch the next train drained us. We took a water break at Yew Tee and then continued….

Kranji…Marsiling…Woodlands…Admirality…

We tried to give funny themed poses at each station, and gave cool(read lame) captions for each. For example at Newton, we posed with our iPhones. (Netwon=Apple=Iphone…..smart eh?:P)

Sembawang…Yishun…Khatib…Yio Chu Kang…

Half way through I was so tired that I started losing my interest and regretted having come up with this stupid idea. I couldn’t wait for this to be over!

Ang Mo Kio…Bshan…Braddel…

At Toa Payo, we realized that by the time we reach the last station, the SG50 parade would have finished and we would have to face the plague like crowd. So we went to Marina South Pier directly and came back to where we left. The station was still crazily crowded! It was with great difficulty that we managed to get back inside the station after taking the picture.

Marina South Pier.. Marina Bay…Raffles Place…City Hall…Doby Ghat…Somerset…Orchard…Newton…Nouvena…Phew! It was finally over!

We were thoroughly exhausted when we finally checked in at the last stop and my friend suggested taking a cab back home. That would so not serve the purpose of utilizing free MRT rides and I strongly opposed the idea. They couldn’t stand another MRT ride. So after a bit of arguing and debating, we took a bus, which crawled its way to Clementi.

Total Money saved: 0.73x25=18.25$ each!
Total Hours lost: 6hrs each!

I got so used to not tapping at the gantries, that the next few days I found it so inconvenient and annoying having to use the ez-link card to access the MRT. K



Our 'Trophy'