Singapore, Round 2 – Pulau Ubin

By Rough Guy'd

So come the Saturday, we decided to go for another trip with a big group of people, being my cousin’s friends. This time the destination was a popular local island not far from the city but probably off most tourist’s itinerary. The island of Pulau Ubin is situated about two km northeast of the main island and has been referred to as what Singapore was like fifty years ago.

As always with a large group, we didn’t exactly make the greatest time and by the time we all managed to meet up and take the ferry across the water, it was already 230pm. The first thing we did when we reached the island (other than taking lots of photos) was to head to the tourist-catering village and rent ourselves a bunch of bikes. The best way to see the island is by bicycle and even the most unfit of us would find the cycling to be easy and we managed to see quite a lot of the island this way, including a short part where they built a thin cycling track over the water.

While cycling one of the many tracks on the island, we stopped off for some drinks and got the chance to meet the owner’s pet wild boar before we headed back to the main village to tuck into a nice seafood dinner. One thing that can never be underestimated is the Singaporean’s knowledge of how to prepare seafood.

The following week, I took the time to visit the science centre. While initially I wasn’t that interested to see it, I was told by my relatives that it was worth seeing. What I found when I went inside was that the place was big and very well thought out. What was most interesting was that the place was built not so much for academia in mind but the simple every day person and while this meant that you would never have the same amount of detail, what they sacrificed in detail they made up for by being user friendly and very hands on. Most of the exhibits spoke of cutting edge technology and many allowed you to try for yourself some of the ideas and theories. There was even some demonstrations put on so that you can see some of the bigger effects such as their working tesla coils.

Finally to round out the last of my time in Singapore, I went to an IT expo. The expo was held at Suntec city and was absolutely packed with people so that you couldn’t even walk easily. As well as seeing many big and impressive things for sale and demonstration, there was also a lot of smaller things and I bought for myself a very handy pair of noise-cancelling earphones that would more than pay for its cost down the line. Now that I had planned my time perfectly, I was free to move onto Malaysia without worrying about missing the wedding and still leaving me with time to do what I wanted to do the most, backpacking. Next stop, Melaka in Malaysia.