Fun's over.

The week at Tekong has ended and I'm missing it already. The week was both tiring and fun at the same time. Before I go more in depth on what we did over the week, here is a picture of our lodgings.

Its not too clear unfortunately, considering I took it with a cellphone cam. Anyway,these are longhouses and every platoon was allocated one. We did not have the luxury of real beds though, and had to make do with safari beds, which was kind of hard to fall asleep on, but not really a problem when you're dead tired.

The schedule on the island was interesting, it was the first time in my life that I did some serious mountain-biking, with rough roads and gear changes and stuff.  Being able to do it with friends and in an environment that is relatively unspoilt by human intervention was an added bonus. Anyway, the bike cycling was just one of a few events organized by the battalion, we had movie screenings, navigation exercises and even a mini sports day, although the latter was just before we left for Tekong. The highlight of the Tekong trip however, was a survival demonstration course where the instructor(an indian ranger) showed us how to live off the land. The part that had some of our more compassionate soldiers grimacing was where he demonstrated how to kill animals with your hands. Almost all his methods involve decapitation and his unfortunate victims range from a quail to a hen. One of my friends even tried his hand at it when the ranger asked for volunteers. Thats one more quail headed for that big forest in the sky.

We did not have much to do at night though, after all the activities of the day had come to an end. There were movie screenings but I did not catch any of them,seeing it was held outdoors and I did not find the idea of being a human mosquito bait very inviting. Instead, all my nights were spent on this:

Its a card game called "Citadels". The good part is up to 8 people can play and we were never short of willing parties. We have another card game called "Saboteur" that we alternate with this one to keep things fresh. I've really got to thank Justin for bring something so quaint into camp. I don't think I'll ever play something like this if not for him. Due to all the fun we're having, the week flew by before we knew it and soon, it was time to hop onto the ferry back to the mainland. We did catch a glimpse of some recruits practicing for their POP parade though.

Seeing them all seated in company formation and their fullpacks all laid out neatly behind them really brings back memories. Although it has been more than 10 years since my POP, some things just stays the same. I can see the look in the eyes of many fresh-faced recruits and I guess mine was pretty much the same back then. It was an added surprise when we learnt that their school CO used to be my unit's CO back when we were still an active unit. Talk about coincidences. I wonder what would be his reaction if he were to see us now.