I woke up at around 0630.
I looked around to see a huge lump beside me, covered in possibly the thickest blanket I ever saw.
It was my friend. Like me, she also had the habit of covering her entire body under the blanket.
"Oh."
I wonder how long she has been there.
We planned to go out at 0930, so there's three hours left. I couldn't pray, so I went over to the plug where I had charged my powerbank last night. It was at 100%, so I plugged it off, and charged my phone. I then scrolled through all of my social media and tweeted a bit. After about 20 minutes, I went back to sleep.
I didn't remember what I dreamed of that morning, but all I know it caused me to slam my left arm on my friend's leg. Hard. It woke me up, and roused her to state of half-awakeness. I apologised profusely, to which she waved off drowsily. She then went back to sleep. I checked the time on the clock.
0740.
I was starting to panic. Usually, at this time back home, I would've been in the shower, lest I get a "good" yelling. I dared not wake her up; her house, her rules, after all....
So I went back to browsing through my phone again. After I finished browsing, I lied down again. I was still a bit worried because of the time. I tried to ignore it.
At around 0830 (I think?), she finally got up and asked me to get ready. I waited for her to go and get ready herself, then started getting all of my things out.
I tried to take a loong shower since I haven't had one in months. Then I remembered I didn't even pay a single cent for the water or the electricity I used, so I finished up as quickly as possible.
I got ready, and waited in the room. I then peeked out of the room after a while, and she saw me and beckoned me out to have breakfast with them.I stepped out with all of bags, set them down near the table, and sat down to eat.
I got a nasi lemak, but unfortunately it's covered in sambal, which is something that i couldn't stand; so I ate the uncovered parts. As I ate, her mom asked what drink I wanted, she gave me choice between iced lemon tea (something she gave me last night) and plain water.
Worried that I might get a sore throat ( I almost got a fever before I set off for the trip), I asked for plain water. My friend asked me what drinks do I consume in the morning. I told her mostly plain water, with some coffee before I started my studies. I got my drink and started drinking.
I tried to fnish whatever I could, then when the both of us are finished, she asked for the plate which contained my meal. As she carried it away, I apologised for wasting her food.
I then waited on the couch near the living room while I waited for her. Her dad started asking where do we intended to go. I told him; and he recommended for us to go to the Singapore Zoo, telling it's one of the best in the world. I acknowledged that.
But truth be told, that place is one of the last places I'll go to when it comes to picking places to go in Singapore, I thought to myself ; I've been to many zoos in Malaysia, and I don't feel like going to a place that most likely has more or less the same experience I could get back home. I still considered going during other times, though.
After she returned to the living room, she went off to take her things, and after that, we both bid her family farewell. Before we stepped out of the house, they gave me two bottles of water, which was a blessing considering the long hours that I'll be out in the sun.
We stepped out of the house to go to the bus stop that will take us to the bus station. While we walked, we talked about our schools and lives. I remember asking her to give the social media profiles of the people with whom I had spent recess with at school two years ago. I also remembered talking about the differences between the slangs and accents of our home states.
Apparently us Selangoreans don't have any accents... unless your Javanese or something and have speech influenced by those languages. Sucks.
We boarded the bus, sat down and continued our conversations.
After we reached Woodlands MRT, I went to top up my EZlink card before boarding the train.
On the train, she asked me the where is the longest travel time between two MRT stations in Singapore; it was on the line that we were travelling on. I struggled to answer even though I already read it on twitter a few times. After that, we went over our itinerary again, then we had fun scribbling random stuff on it.
We disembarked at Jurong East Station. She went to top up her own EZlink card, so I waited around. I then looked around the station; there's a lot of malls in the vicinity. After she was done, I asked about the malls near the station. She said there were a lot of them, and now the local populace don't have to travel all the way downtown to shop any more. We then talked about shopping in Malaysia and Singapore, as well as purchasing power...which then turned into a conversation about living costs.
I'm impressed that she didn't get bored during all of those heavy topics. Most people would've literally left me the moment I bought those up.
We then continued our conversations on the bus on the way to the Science Centre. After we arrived, we went inside to the counter, but before we went in to pay, we took a few brochures about Singapore so that we won't get lost in the less familiar areas of downtown.
When she paid our tickets, the ticketer asked for my NRIC - I panicked. She told me that she left it at home and the ticketer asked for my EZlink. I immediately lowered myself to conceal my bag, which basically screams "I'M NOT FROM HERE I'M A FREAKING TOURIST". Thankfully, everything else went off without a hitch, and so we stepped inside.
I don't remember everything (sorry man...! Fever and time took most of it away...). I did remember a few things that happened, such as the time I miserably failed to try and take a Snapchat video of her ( I don't fare particularly well when using other peoples' equipment) and I had to take it multiple times. *facepalm*
And I remembered saying that I was from the pure science stream to which she went "nopenope I'm not worthy" sarcastically, which was funny. There's also the time where I explained resonance and guitar string physics, as well as the time I miserably failed to try and tune a "piano" (har har).
After we finished mucking around at the Science Centre, we checked the time; it was 1300. We estimated to get out before 1130. We were an hour and a half behind schedule. We then found a spot to go over our itinerary again, during which we decided to scrape of ION Orchard off our list.
After we exited the Science Centre, we tried to go back to Jurong East MRT. She asked whether I preferred to walk or to take bus there. At first, I preferred to walk, but knowing that I won't be able to actually rest until tomorrow morning, I tried to conserve as much as energy and muscle as possible, and took the bus instead.
When we reached Jurong East MRT, I just remembered of a friend, and so I asked her about Bandar Bahru Jurong. She said there was no such place. I then asked of Jurong Town instead, to which she said it was nearby.
Then, she asked me who was the friend. I hesitated; I feared that she knew him; the Singaporean Malay community is a small one, after all. I told her who he was without revealing his identity. We then took the train towards our next destination : Arab St. which is a street that I've went to many times before in Singapore.
On the train, we talked about the many types of schools in Malaysia, which left her confused. She also talked about her debating experiences, which led to a conversation about school uniforms and my disastrous first day of pre-university. I remember that before we got down at Bugis MRT, she talked about how she ended up choosing to further her studies in Yemen instead of Egypt.
We got down at Bugis MRT, and started to head towards Arab St. She asked me, which way is it to go towards Arab St.? I pointed towards exit B. She then asked me, which way towards... I don't remember where, exactly...
But what I did remember was when I answered both correctly (apparently), she remarked that I was more of a "Singaporean" than her, to which I feel a bit weirded out, but a bit... proud of myself in a way.
After 4 trips, 3 of which with me as the guide, of course I would remember the streets of Bugis... I would get lost a lot of times if I didn't, then.
We walked along Victoria St. during which I saw walked behind a guy. I saw the Pearl ( a drum brand) before looking at his other gear and recognizing other things, a cymbal bag, clamps, double pedal bag, or at least I thought it was, based off of the size...
I was walking behind a gigging drummer. I reacted loud enough for my friend to hear me, which led me to pointing his gear out to her. She then asked me to go up to him to say... anything. I refused, 'cause even if we were... colleagues (in an indirect way), there's no way my scaredy butt is going to say hi to a stranger just because we shared the same profession.
We then went into a mall ( a Google search IDs this as Golden Landmark Shopping Mall; I'm not sure). I asked her how is it like to be schooling in the downtown area. She said it was very convenient since nothing is ever more than stone's throw away.
I also asked her what stuff is sold in here. She said that due to the location, it has a lot more Muslim and Islamic stuff than the usual Singaporean malls. She once told me of a story that about her at the mall, which involved her, her principal and a clothing display/store.
Unfortunately, I don't remember a lot of particulars about the story. All I remembered is that she was looking at a few clothing items, and it turned out that it belonged to her principal, or at least a relative of his. I don't remember.
We exited the mall and went to have lunch at the Domino's at Arab Street. I sat down while she ordered. I ordered a Meatzza along with a Sprite. It was pretty cheap, considering that Domino's in Malaysia tend to grossly inflate their drink prices (RM 3 for a can of Pepsi are you kidding me?).
I sat down while she ordered. Then she came back to me, asking me to pay up. Since I don't have any
small change, I gave her a $50 note and took her $7. She then handed me back the change after ordering.
Since we had half an hour to go before our order was done, we decided to walk around Bugis for a while. We decided to go to one place : Madrasah Aljunied. But first, we decided to go to another place beforehand.
Sometime earlier in the morning, she suggested me to go to a restaurant which was a favourite haunt of the local madrasah students. It had awesome milk tea. And I liked milk tea.
And so we went there (Post-trip Google search said that this particular restaurant is Kohnangkam, located at Jln Keledek). We went in, and she asked me what type of tea do I want. There's two variants: Green tea and black tea (normal). I chose the normal one.
After that, we headed towards Madrasah Aljunied. As we were walking, I wondered aloud whether we were allowed to go past the receptionist's office, as I had never passed it during the three times I was there. She said that the front might not be open at all, as it was a Sunday. I then asked her of the existence of a back gate; there is one, but it goes through the cemetery next to the school, which led to my next question : does she know of any ghost stories from Madrasah Aljunied?
She said yes, but I do not remember the details. She then asked back of my own from my schools. I said that there are, but they remain dormant and silent as long as they are not provoked in any way.
We stopped at the school sign and I took my obligatory photo there. Then, seeing that the front gate is open, we entered. We saw that there's people near the canteen. My friend then remembered that there's some sort of camp today. As if we were heard, we heard muffled speech coming from somewhere inside the school; it sounded like it was spoken through a microphone.
We then walked further into the school. I was worried of getting caught, since she told me they have CCTVs in the school; they might blacklist me from stepping in the school, or worse, not letting me enlist... ever. We went into the toilet for a while to adjust our bearings. We discussed whether it was wise to go further into the school.
After dabbling on an indecision, we decided against it, and decided to go back to have our lunch instead. But before we left, she took a photo of me standing in the school corridor. After we took it, we kinda tried to go out of the there as discreetly as possible. And that's the story of how I finally got past the receptionist's office. And how this is the second school I've entered illegally. Heh.
We took photos at the leafy fence of Stamford Primary, which was located across the lane from Aljunied. She explained that the fence was often used by Aljuniedians as a photoshoot background. My friend and I then hightailed it back to the Domino's at Arab Street, where our pizza was just ready by the time we walked in. We then sat down and ate.
While we were eating, I asked her if she would we get into trouble if we were caught and ID-ed. She said that won't do anything to us except for possibly a rebuke, and even if they do , it would her who would get it worse; since she had an ex-Aljuniedian brother.
I continued chomping down on my pizza, still slightly worried. The worry, however, evaporated, when we started talking about more light-hearted topics. I remember talking about my ugly uniform colour and how it made me stand out like hell and look like a walking tree.
After we finished our meal, we decided to go to Masjid Sultan to use the toilets. I asked her on what exactly to find here since all of her friends recommended that she take me here during the trip. She answered it's for cheap clothing and carpets.
After we relieved ourselves, we headed towards our next destination...... the National Museum of Singapore.
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