You And I

This is a new one from one of my favorite bands, Five For Fighting.

And one of the reasons why I like them so much is because they have wonderful stories to tell in all their music. Like this one. Listen to the words and tell me if they ring true, when sometimes we look all over for a reason for this mess we call our world...

There was a man back in '95
Whose heart ran out of summers
But before he died, I asked him

Wait, what's the sense in life
Come over me, Come over me

He said,

Son why you got to sing that tune
Catch a Dylan song or some eclipse of the moon
Let an angel swing and make you swoon
Then you will see... You will see

Then he said,

Here's a riddle for you
Find the Answer
There's a reason for the world
You and I...

Picked up my kid from school today

Did you learn anything cause in the world today
You can't live in a castle far away
Now talk to me, come talk to me

He said,

Dad I'm big but we're smaller than small
In the scheme of things, well we're nothing at all
Still every mother's child sings a lonely song
So play with me, come play with me

And Hey Dad
Here's a riddle for you
Find the Answer
There's a reason for the world
You and I...

I said,

Son for all I've told you
When you get right down to the
Reason for the world...
Who am I?

There are secrets that we still have left to find
There have been mysteries from the beginning of time
There are answers we're not wise enough to see

He said... You looking for a clue I Love You free...

The batter swings and the summer flies
As I look into my angel's eyes
A song plays on while the moon is hiding over me
Something comes over me

I guess we're big and I guess we're small
If you think about it man you know we got it all
Cause we're all we got on this bouncing ball
And I love you free
I love you freely

Here's a riddle for you
Find the Answer
There's a reason for the world
You and I...

Taken from the Album Two Lights

Unkster Uncovered 3 - Of Tight Thighs And Bruised Backsides, Ubin Island

We spent 6 hours on the island today, X-country cycling and trekking. Sore bums, strained muscles and sunburn to show for it. And boy it was bloody hot! The number of ice-cold coconuts I guzzled down =)) Plus I had my Crumpler and DSLR crisscrossed on both shoulders. Looked like some Japanese Army soldier cycling from Pahang to Singapore during the WWII invasion =P

Well a trip to Pulau Ubin is like a throwback to Singapore in the '60s. The island is home to Singapore's last villages or kampongs and there are still about 100 islanders living here.

Pretty much devoid of the modern facilities and amneties on the mainland, Ubin residents depend on wells for water and noisy diesel generators for electricity. Some villagers depend on traditional farming and fishing for subsistence but I think the majority tend to provision stores and eateries that dot the area near the jetty.

Shaped like a boomerang, the 1020-hectare island was once actually a cluster of 5 smaller ones seperated by tidal rivers. However, bunds constructed for prawn-farming have since united these islets into a single island.

They have renovated the Changi Point Ferry Terminal. It even comes with X-ray machines now to screen your baggage. No longer the sorry ramshackle old shack that was the previous one.


First stop was of course the familiar jetty that greets everyone after the Bum-boats bum you off. Looks the same, even from far.


We got these at 8 bucks for half a day. Not too shabby. They were brand new. See the bubble tape still wrapped around the frame? =))


20mins into our journey, we had this 'roadblock'. Probably due to the torrential downpour in the morning. Had to carry the bikes through a detour of thick undergrowth and vines.


Noordin beach. Nothing fantastic. No beach-volleyballing babes. No Pina Coladas under swaying palm trees. But at least it was nice and quiet.


Most of the Islanders now come back only during the weekends to fish and relax. Like this old man. His little shack on the bund near a Sluice gate is now his 'holiday home'. We stopped to chat and play with his flea-infested dogs which were so cute.


Flea-infested dog number 1. Check out those ears. Just don't peer inside. Ewww.


Along Jalan Ubin, there is this makeshift Sarabat stall with the most unusual of mascots. There were a couple of angmo cyclists who rode by and came to a screeching, braking halt just to gawk unbelievingly =)) Surreal to say the least, in the middle of such rustic surroundings somemore. A slice of Sesame Street on the island =))


Durians! Everyone was picking them today, crouched by the roadside, waiting for the thorny ones to drop off the trees. Almost everybody was tenderly cradling his/her prized possession or dangling a couple off the handles of their bicycles. It was like some sort of 'Door-gift' commemorating your visit to Ubin. Except the both of us didn't have one! =/ No patience to squat by the trees and run the risk of having one spike your cranium =))


So we did the next best thing, We paid to have one at the road-side. Sedap! Abit watery but oh so deliciously pungent and bitter. From 'home' soil no less =))


We finished with a delicious seafood dinner overlooking the jetty, tired but looking forward to doing this all over again. But this time, at Chek Jawa =)

A Zoo-ey Good Time No More

Ever since the bearded bohemian Bernard Harrison left the zoo as its Head Honcho, I think its been pretty much a downhill slide.

The first thing that hit K and me as we stepped into the entrance foyer to buy our tickets this afternoon was, God this looks like Sentosa! Yes, Commercialism has taken over. The whole place is now a cross between some Balinese beach resort and a Serengeti tribal village. It can't decide. Heck the service staff have also swopped their utility polo-Ts for really fugly-looking ethnic-cut shirts and sarong-chequered flappy pants.

Money has been spent, no doubt, to spruce the place up and on creature comforts. But we think the moolah has gone to the 'creatures' we call Homo sapiens, rather than the animals. The enclosures look the same size, but the add-ons like gift shops, fancy bamboo-hut rest stops and expensive landscaped 'Heliconia Gardens' have all suddenly mushroomed.

You know we used to be the best in Asia. And one of the very first (if not the first) zoo to have such an open concept. Minimal cages and bars but strategically placed moats and discreet wire-fencing to keep the wild ones at bay. I suppose we are still very much an Open Zoo but with all these changes, K and me feel that the 'back-to-the-wild-side' experience that should accompany every zoo visit has been severely diluted.

Anyway, it was not all doom and gloom lah. Apart from the gloomy weather though. Still brought back some memories of when I was a student volunteer and made to pick up Rhino dung every morning. Big fat pieces the size of a baby's head! But at least I got to toss bloody chickens to the Lions =))

Before we even stepped into the zoo proper, we had to do a BJ =O


Did you know? We certainly didn't. My fav is Chunky Monkey and K's Strawberry Cheesecake. Cherry Garcia nice meh? =))


If you can't read, just look at the heads to identify which animal you want to gawk at next =)) If you can't tell the difference between a Hippo and a Rhino then good luck to you.


When the Zoo says its a Zebra Crossing, they mean it! Wouldn't see this in the CBD you won't.


Ok some animal shots next. If they're a little blur and out of focus forgive me. That's what you get for using a long tele-photo and not having a tripod plus steady hands.


PPNN Tiger (private joke!) =)) But I'm certainly not going to test out if he's a sissy for being so nice and fair.


This Siamang was quite vain and actually played to the gallery.


A Hamadryas Baboon looking pensive at the waterfall, perhaps contemplating the sad irony of fate and a lifetime of bondage =))


The usual monkey pastime of tick-picking. These are macaques, I tick..err.. tink.


This gibbon couldn't decide if he wanted to go up or down. So the camera had to keep going from left to right, right to left.


Gambir, the 17 year-old Asian Elephant doing a little wave after yet another 'cute' performance.


A Jackass Penguin taken from behind his frosty glass enclosure which explains the weird colors and Antarctic feel =))


Billy the Kid.


I love Meerkats. Unfortunately when we were there, the resident vet was trying to catch a couple for vaccination. So they were a little jumpy. The photos of them all ram-rod straight in usual Meerkat 'peering watchman' fashion were all blur because they moved too much =/


Cool afternoon so Big Daddy was out, not snoozing in his sub-zero playpen.


The Singapore Armed Forces would be proud of this one. Confirm minimal camouflaging required with such a groovy paint-job =))


Was waiting to report someone to the rangers if I ever saw him/her sharing sandwiches and peanuts =))


At the end of the day, we had an OK time lah. You guys better visit the place fast before they start a theme ride called Jurrassic Park right next to the Reptile enclosure =))

Everybody Hurts

Something for the person I've hurt, dear friends who are going through a period of hurt and some sad souls I know who are hurt but pretend that they are not.

Everybody hurts...sometimes.

Won't be long now k.


When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on
Don't let yourself go, 'cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong. Now it's time to sing along
When your day is night alone, (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go, (hold on)
When you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on

'Cause everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts. Don't throw your hand. Oh, no. Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone

If you're on your own in this life, the days and nights are long,
When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on

Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
Everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on
Everybody hurts. You are not alone

Caravan Of Love

This song was playing on the radio on my way home from work just now.

It brought back memories of us classmates practicing the tune acapella for some silly Lunchtime Concert back in school. Not easy since we didn't have the benefit of instruments to mask the yelping and croaking. But lucky for me and another girl, we were given the relatively easy part of 'pom pom pom-ing' our way through most of the song. But still the vocal coordination was quite a nitemare for novices like us. Plus the fact that we were not that talented and afraid that the 'award-winning' choir folks in the audience would laugh themselves silly when they heard us =P

I tink we sounded more like the House-Fartings than the Housemartins =))

But surprisingly, we were pretty much well received. Even called upon to do an encore performance at another event which I have since forgotten about. So we couldn't have been that bad.

However till now, I still don't know what the lyrics mean. What's a caravan of love? And why do we have to Stand Up, Stand Up? I'm you're brother, She's my sister? Must be some '60s, hippie, free-love kinda ditty.

Nice little number nonetheless. I'll try it out again in the shower later =))

only now...

...have i realised that more than 9100 unique visitors have been to UNKSTER.....

bring on the big 10!

Unkster Uncovered 2 - Bollywood and Birds : The Kranji Countryside

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon yesterday. And instead of hitting town, AGAIN, we decided to take a drive to the 'wilderness' we know as Kranji. In north-western Singapore, its part industrial wasteland, part Tarzan jungle =))

On the way there, we passed by the only Dragon Kiln on our island. A dragon kiln is so called because the damn thing looks like, well, a long fire-breathing lizard. The claywares are put into the 50m thingee, and they are fired inside from an inferno created at the 'mouth' of the dragon. From the pic below you can't see the whole kiln, only the front so try to imagine =))

And there was this doggie guarding the kiln. Kidding lah, our mandatory canine shot. Grumpy fella.

Pots, freshly fired for sale.

Old-fashioned Dragon pots. Now I know where to find them!


We had heard so much about Bollywood Veggies, an organic farm run by 2 rich but retired 'celebrities' who now spend their time tending to bananas and sweet potato. There's a cosy little cafe on the farm called Poison Ivy where the owners dish out a real mean chicken curry with organic potatoes, farm-bred chickens, no MSG and no coconut milk =)) Sedap! But we had to pay 2 bucks to get into the farm which was, sadly, a bit unkempt and cowdung-ish =)) But ok lah not bad.

Dunno wat flower but I liked the orangy hues. Must flip Botany textbook liao.

The recurring fruit on the farm, bananas...

and more bananas..baby ones

One of the few patches of respectable-looking veggies. The rest were either harvested or looked like they were hit by a particularly bad drought.

A lotus pond at the back of the farm. Looked like giant duckweed to me =))

We liked this little fella. Abit of an identity crisis the poor thing cos we think one of his parents must have been a bee =))


Next stop, we dropped by the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. K and me used to be part-time nature guides and we brought students on field trips here very often. Not to see birds per se but to tramp around the mangroves and get ourselves all icky in the mud. Up close and personal with Mother Nature you see. All these urbanised kiddos! We could spend the whole day here, amongst the stilt and pencil roots of this important ecosystem, telling them about horseshoe crabs and gobies and how the Mangroves play such a vital role in species diversity and conservation.

View from the main hut on the reserve. Too hot for birds today so we saw only a couple. Somemore no Binos. Hiazz.

Sungei Buloh which means the Buloh River...I think =))

Bridge Over River Buloh =))


What a walk on the Wild Side! =))

The Bus Ride

I took the bus to work today.

Something I have not done for a good 6 years. The car broke down late last night and there was no time to get it towed to the service centre this morning because of work.

Well I could have taken a cab and saved myself the hassle of having to walk to the bus-stop, fish for coins and jostle with the crowds for a good seat. But I thought, wat the heck, lets relive some 'memories'.

Unlike most young 20-somethings (even 18 year-olds nowadays) who zoom around in their REX-es and Integras, I bought my first car at a relatively 'old' age of 27. Soon after the wifey got her license, she too got herself a new set of wheels. Unfortunately the both of us did not get a 'vehicle-bursary' from mudder and fudder to jumpstart our entry into car ownership. But being DINKS, we were comfortable lah.

Buses may have been the 'peasant' way to travel back then, but it gave me and K the opportunity to talk and enjoy each other's company on the way to skool or to town. And because I could read on the bus without getting a splitting headache, unlike her, I could finish 2-3 chapters of exam revision along the journey from home to University. The world too, looks so different from the top of a Double-decker, swaying gently and chugging along with someone else at the wheel. As a driver now, I am usually too busy cursing at my fellow motorists to care for the greenery or sights and sounds along the way from Pt A to Pt B.

Yes we may have got our independence from having 2 cars at our disposal, anytime of day, anywhere we wanna go, 24/7. But sometimes, the feeling of a 'shared journey' is lost, in more ways than one.

Nice and pleasant bus ride today nonetheless. But later, the Alfa's gonna come get me from work and save me from this temporary sojourn in the 'peasant way' =))

Unkster Uncovered 1 - Upper Pierce Reservoir

A new series here, in addition to StyleFiles, unkers@TheMovies and Destination, where we will attempt to offer an off-the-beaten-track peek into some of the more obscure and interesting places on our tiny island Singapura.

For starters, here's Upper Pierce Reservoir, a scenic water-body located in the Central Catchment Area off Upper Thomson Road. Nearby is Singapore's premier golf club, The Singapore Island Country Club, which explains the giant blue golf ball in the picture =))

Tranquil sunsets, not much of a crowd, great for a good X-country run and exercise for our little Princess ;)

Beware the monkeys on the way in though...