The girls have been hell bent over using public transport since we got back. While no one noticed me sulking over a bottle of wine for the instant lack of car, they stick their grounds nevertheless. And any outing is directly proportional to battling it out with them to at least take taxi. But the sheer excitement of tapping the Ezlink card, pressing the STOP bell and enjoying views from a double decker bus are beyond Mommy’s comprehension, they think. They tell me taxi is boring. Busses and trains are interesting with so many people around. They still don’t seem to figure why this city is all empty with the distance between any two given persons being over a few feet. They still miss the people from India.
So couple of days back, I gave in and we landed ourselves in the best seats on the top deck of bus number 10. I was secretly dreading the journey because we were supposed to alight at Suntec while the girls were upbeat right from the bus stop. The 10 long minutes that meant drudgery to me, were actually quite entertaining to them. Lots of buses stopping, getting filled to the brim and zipping by. Queues and queues of people drowned in handhelds, doing complete justice to their glasses and the occasional smell of McDonalds fries. Could life get any better?
Finally we rejoiced on our newly found window to the world – a view from first seat on the top. And from the speed of the bus, compounded by the number of traffic lights numbing my already Math challenged brain, I could only figure we’d be lucky to arrive at our destination the same evening.
So every few stops, I would slyly inform the girls how happy I would be to alight, just in case they were bored. And each time I embraced disappointment. Now I decided brooding over this journey made little sense. And the beautiful sunset in the backdrop of picture perfect landed homes sprawling the Upper East Coast Road(one of my favourite roads In Singapore) led to a change of heart. After that, there was no looking back. The constant fights and complains of the aircon being too cold failed to dampen my spirits. And with my new S8 clicking on, I was on a journey in nostalgia. All those places we would frequent, the bylanes I always loved and the sheer memoirs from the life of a young girl who once arrived in Singapore, clueless about her future in this garden city filled me up.
The evening turned out beautifully, with the girls shuffling over and around me a few times, some verbal wars that may have left other passengers in shock and lots of good shots on my phone. It took us close to an hour to reach Suntec after which we were lucky to storm into bathrooms minus any queue. We owe that one to the perfectly functioning aircon. SBS Transit fans, anyone?
Parent By Chance 