Just Another Saturday

I had my first Tai Chi class at the gym Sat morning. It was surprisingly tough but the shi-fu talked a lot so it seemed like a lot of rest time. We were doing the 24 Forms of Tai Chi. The movements were controlled and graceful, slow yet somehow you have to use your inner energy (nei-gong). The shi-fu spoke about stance, balance and using his back. Made us hold his tummy and the small of his back while he breathed into his tummy. You could feel not just the tummy expand, but the back expand as well. Amazing!

I was reminded of Jackie Chan in one of his old kungfu movies where the shi-fu got him to do various back-breaking poses for 8 hours or something! "Hold this 'ma-bu' now!" "Carry these 2 huge buckets of water". Of course we did no such thing! If we learnt something from those wuxia xiaoshuo or Kungfu movies, it's that one can only be good at it with constant practice (ku-lian), practice and practice until almost die. In movies, they always fast forward the suffering but in reality, I don't have the tenacity to do it every night or even every week. Since I'm not a die-hard Tai Chi enthusiast and I don't have a personal Shi-Fu to torture me, I won't be so hardworking. Hence, I will not become a Tai Chi expert.

Next, geocaching! Yayyyyy! We did 4 caches on Sat.

We finally completed Singapore Challenge 1. It took us almost 3 months! It wasn't because there were so much to find but because the 4 checkpoints were so far apart that we didn't want to find it all in one day! One of them was at Ubin. The final cache took us to a place we were familiar with - Kent Ridge Park. There we were again and we didn't walk the boardwalk again!! I guess we only had 2 things on our minds at the time. To find the cache!!! And to escape from the mosquitoes!!! (for Mag lah)

I get a few bites here and there but it's amazing how I tend to escape the full wrath of the mozzies when she's around. hehe.. They all seem to gravitate towards her and around her. I keep telling her that the mosquito patches attract them!!

We found the containers wet and yucky!! The logbook was damp but we could still write in it.

Cleaning and sunning the contents.


Notice the coins? It was a total of 95¢ !! They were rotting together with the batteries so we decided to take it and use it to subsidise 2 McDonald's ice cream cones!! A sinful but yummy treat after all our hardwork!

Here we are goofing around while doing the West Coast cache, showing off what IndianaJanes can do... (yeah, right!)


We saved a Mamsell in distress from the cache (it's just a Travel Bug lah) and Chewie gave her a ride. She's been scalped but DecoyDog saves the day!!
Poor Chewie doesn't look too happy that I made her pose that way for so long, while I tried to take a sharp picture without flash! Hahaha...
Oopsie! Just realised you can see her coffeeshop from this angle! :Þ




Find me?


The last 2 caches (Under "Water" cache and No Name cache) were mosquito havens so they were just quickie sign and run affairs.

Under "Water" cache - not sure what this structure was used for but it's now abandoned and really rusting up. This is at Portsdown Road.


NoName cache is nearby. Mag armoured herself with 'anti-mozzie' raincoat after the attack at under 'water'! LOL..


We saw a locomotive pass on the tracks minutes after we crossed it! *phew* No chance to play Penelope Pitstop going, 'heeeelp! heeeelp! save meee...!'


And finally, to end the day, we had dinner Da Paolo Pizza Bar at Chip Bee Gardens. On the whole it was a pleasant meal. The salad was good and the starter (of Portobello mushrooms) reminded me of Italy. In the middle of the meal, Mag tells me there are dead cows on the ceiling! I thought she sees dead cows (a la Sixth Sense, maybe this is cow sense??)... The ceiling was lined with white/brown cow hide lah.

But DON'T order the Americano here! If, like everybody else (including the 58 million in Italy), you think it's going to be just black coffee, you're wrong! Their 'interpretation' of Americano comes with walnut liquor, cream(!) and chocolate chips! And even though we were only served the black coffee (which we wanted), we were still charged for the full Americano! sheesh! Lesson learnt - always check your bills.