Last Sunday I went blading along the ECP by myself and it was a relaxing, peaceful experience. To just glide smoothly along the paths, with the waves breaking onto the shores, laughter of children, chatter of youths, conversation among family members - it sooths a troubled mind. Have you ever felt that sometimes there are just too many people, too many not-friends but more than acquaintances pressing around, squeezing the very breath out of your lungs, wringing the last bit of energy from your soul? Have you ever felt a need for solace the way a starving child needs food? I felt like that on Sunday - and it was time, I thought, for some time-out.

So I bladed along the paths of ECP, observing but detached. There was a couple that I over-took, the guy obviously trying to teach the gal how to blade, I saw youngsters swift and deadly on blades, winging their way through the slower bladers, cyclists and joggers with ease, lost in their own world of iPod music. I saw a two Japanese gals on their first attempt on a tandem bicycle, losing control and careering wildly into the path of bicycles going the other direction and a tumble was avoided only because the other cyclists were quick enough to stop. I heard the music from the pubs lining the beach, with the smoke from the BBQ pits scenting the air. It was fun. A very different definition of fun I know - but being alone I realise, is sometimes when the most fun occurs. I had fun in Bangkok, by myself. I had fun in India, by myself. I even had fun, sitting in the ACM Museum library, doing research - the reading table looks out, through colonial style window, to the Singapore river. Fun can be defined in many ways - not just excitement or thrills.

Have you ever felt a sense of loss as you grow older and realise that you and your parents now inhabit different worlds? That your world, with its values and views, does not make any sense to your parents? And realise that in order to maintain some semblance of peace in the family, you have to keep your innermost thoughts and deepest hopes to yourself? And as a result the gulf grows wider? I look at the young children at Marina Cove, happily pointing out whatever caught their attention, and their parents smiling indulgently, and I wonder, how and when did these disappear? We grow up, they grow old - and somehow, we grow apart. And by the time, if ever, this breach is bridged, there might be not much time left for us together. And if you get married and have kids, the cycle begins anew. However, how can we truly regret this growing gulf unless we regret what we have become? How can a child ever be considered a grown-up until she has left her parents' orbit and find her own place in the world? Questions to ponder...

I went on a reconnaissance trip to Mt. Ophir with five other people, including my younger brother, last week. The plan was to check out the place to see if it is suitable for a trip during the upcoming September holidays involving maximum of 20 youths plus volunteers and social workers. I came back with a sprained ankle, and a body aching all over.

Nonetheless, I did enjoy the trip - it marks the first time I had actually climbed a mountain (Bt. Timah doesn't count) and while guys who had served NS might groan about the next remark, I do really find it a novel experience to have to cook, drink, wash in the river by our campsite, to have to cook using mess tins over a bunsen burner, to carry everything you need on your backpack etc etc. My brother found the trip boring because, he "is still too close to NS to see this in a fun light". I have some sympathy, after all I suppose that he could have spent his last day as a NSman in a far better way than trekking in the rain-forest (he officially ORD last Friday).

Things I hate about the trip - I hate the after-rain trekking because the ground is wet and muddy. It was also far more difficult since the soil has been washed away and we end up stepping through tree roots. Previously, the soil was held in place by the roots such that "steps" were formed and we could walk on the steps. I hate the fact that people throw unfinished food into the river - there was rice, noodles etc at the bottom of the river near the campsite.

The other stuff are more "girly" - I hate not being able to take a proper bath or shower for two days, or use a proper toilet. I hate the idea of getting all covered with mud and grime because I keep slipping and falling. I hate the fact that my legs are now purplish in colour due to all the bruises I got from multiple slips and falls and that I am now hobbling around because I sprained my ankle on the descent.

So much for the things I hate, now for things I like about the trip - I like the physical exertion, even though I should really have prepared myself better physically. It was sheer will-power that drove me on towards the last leg of each trek every evening - the first evening when we were trying to get to Checkpoint Four where we set up our camp, and the second evening when we were trying to get back to Checkpoint Four before it gets dark. The exercise is very cleansing - words are inadequate, or I lack the vocabulary to describe the feeling - even though I was dead beat by the time I returned to Singapore and had to spend the whole of Sunday sleeping, I was very relaxed. I did not even feel the usual dread that steals over me on Sunday evenings as I prepare myself for another grueling week ahead.

I enjoyed trekking along to the melody of the bubbling stream and the feeling of calm and serenity that cloaks the forest as the sun began to set, even as we start to panic slightly when as the day wanes and we discovered we have only two torches among us. I enjoyed using ropes to climb up the various cliffs and hills - even though I slipped and fell the first time and was absolutely petrified when I had to descend again using the same ropes. I loved the view before me when I stood mid-way up the cliff and turned to look at the view behind me. 

I loved the location of my camp. We set up camp at an outcrop that overlooks the river - the river meanders in from the far side and into a rather deep pool that has fishes swimming in them - it then flows down a mini waterfall, into yet another shallow pool, finally, it flows down to a third pool before gushing down on its merry way down the mountain. The sound of the flowing water provides a relaxing backdrop as we go about cooking dinner, playing cards and drifting off to sleep every night. In the morning, the view is further enhanced by the rays of sunlight coming through the canopy and reflecting off the river. At night, I love to lay on my back and look up to see the moon and the many many sparkling stars and steadily shining planets, all partially obscured by the trees.

I loved sleeping in the tent at night - it is dark and cozy, and at that altitude, it is cold. It rained the second night, and the tent began to leak. I managed to hunt out the waterproof ground sheets and wrapped myself in one so that I can continue to sleep even though the water was dripping from the ceiling of the tent. Luckily the tent was built on uneven ground, I woke up the next morning to find one end of the tent flooded.

That is all for now. I'll revise this when I have more time...

I made my twice-yearly pilgrimage to my grandparents' final resting places yesterday, as part of the Qing Ming Festival. As per my family's practice, our first stop was at the temple in Punggol, where the ashes of my maternal grandparents are interred, and where their tablets are placed. Our second stop is the temple at Toa Payoh, where the ashes and tablets of my paternal grandparents are located.

I never knew either of my grandfathers - they both passed away before my parents' marriage. I was never really close to either of my grandmothers - I could not communicate with my father's mother, who speaks Teochew, a language which I could understand only great effort and speak with even greater difficulty. To my mother's mother, being the daughter of a daughter diminishes my value greatly in her eyes, particularly when there are so many grandsons to shower her affections on. In other words, my grandparents are almost complete strangers to me.

And as I stood before their tablets, offering incense and paying my respects, I cannot help wondering if my own children, if I ever have any, will even bother to come down in eighty years' time, to do the same. For them, my grandparents will for all purposes have never existed. My parents still share with me stories of their childhood, their parents and who they are. But what about my own children, or the children of my sibling and my cousins? They will in all likelihood never hear about their great-grandparents, given our own almost complete ignorance about them.

Already despite all the grandchildren, I know that precious few of us ever accompany our parents for these twice-annual visits. What happens when nobody ever visits them anymore, or pay for their upkeep? What happens if our line is to die out, a very real possibility given how many of us grandchildren are unmarried or living the life of DINKs. Of course, a filial child or grandchild can set up a trust for the purpose of maintaining their remains, but even such trust must terminate after a hundred years. What happens then? Will the temples fulfill their unspoken and unwritten duty to continue the maintenance of my grandparents' remains, or will they discreetly depose of them since nobody will ever come forward to make a complaint? I wonder if Pulau Semakau will be filled by then.

I stood before grandfather's remains, placed in a hole in a concrete wall, which was then sealed with marble slab, and it seems to me that traditions arose out of the inherent fears in us - fear of being forgotten, and fear of death. After all, isn't there a saying somewhere along line that a person is never truly dead until he is forgotten? Yet, it natural for a person be forgotten once his her fades into background static, as more recent stories come to the forefront - the story of my paternal grandparents coming down to Singapore to escape the civil war then ripping China apart is overtaken by the story of how some my cousins made their way back China, riding on rapid development Chinese economy. And what happens to all these memorials to the dead, when dead themselves are forgotten, or at very least, consigned to the dusty corners of our memories?

Perhaps it will be better if we accept the inevitable - I love to travel, and I want to travel, and I cannot imagine a better fate than to have my ashes thrown into the sea where they can travel with the currents, visiting places that I may never have the chance to see in my lifetime. And leave my descendants to go about their daily lives, to write their own stories and weave their own tales. Somehow this sounds so much better, then being kept in a ugly jar and sealed into a tiny hole, and when I am finally forgotten, to be dumped into Pulau Semakau.