Lah-lah Land Diaries: Black hole stroll

i had a lah-lah land "episode" about singapore's giant birth control monument in the works, but i just don't have the energy to infuse personality into it right now. this 730am shtick is no joke ha. especially not after a monday night acs meeting that stretched on and on and on... anyway, so instead of venting about bad architecture and population control conspiracies, i thought i'd better focus my energy on something more pleasant.

one of the unrivaled best times that marlon and i have had together was the saturday before i left singapore to go back home. spurred to action by a week of sloth and gluttony, we decided to wake up early and go hiking at the macritchie reservoir.

yes. me. hiking. in the morning.

fortified by a quick bread talk/coffee bean breakfast, we started our hike by spending 48 years trying to figure out the trail map of the macritchie reservoir park (boyf: "wanna try this trail?" currystrumpet: "are you kidding? 11.3km? do you not want me to come out alive?"), ogling turtles, and grumbling about the 125,000 company outings/sporting events encroaching upon our blissful encounter with nature.

we ended up choosing a 5k or so trail that was the only way to get to the hsbc treetop walk, which was, silly me, the reason i wanted to go to macritchie park in the first place. after dodging a small army of sweaty singaporeans and hairy caucasians in pekpek shorts and wifebeater sandos, we were off.

the park is quite lovely. if we had something like that in manila, i would be way more physically active than i am now. it's a good place to take kids, too -- aside from being sideswept by annoying fit joggers, marlon and i passed a number of families with small children. there is genuine wildlife (monkeys, geckos and an intriguing variety of foliage --gad, i just used the word foliage), and the trees screen out most of the heat.

you'd think trudging for three hours straight would be godawful boring, but really, it wasn't. i think marlon himself was pretty surprised that i agreed to go with him in the first place, and more so because i was evidently having fun (aside from my few frantic huffs of "slow down! short legs!"). well, it was fun. i'll be a sap and say that it was pretty much because of the company. :-)

by the time we arrived at the treetop walk, a light rain was falling. all the better to refresh us sloths and scare away all the people. the "treetop walk" is basically a narrow suspended bridge of reinforced steel cables and planks that stretches out across, you guessed it, treetops. stationed at opposite ends are guards (rangers, whatever) ready to yank you off the bridge at the first hint of lightning.

after ten days of living in a concrete box of a country, the best thing about that bridge was that it was like a black hole where no buildings, no condos, no singaporeans and no malls -- NONE OF IT -- existed. all i could see was a sky that tossed raindrops on me when i tipped my face up to it, treetops that danced in the breeze, and the face of someone i love deeply.

marlon and i hung out and caused traffic on the bridge for a good twenty minutes or more, perusing each treetop and giving them personalities. we also posed for the obligatory cameraphone photo-op, deathly afraid of dropping the phone (see left). you'll just have to take my word for it that the greenery behind us really does consist of treetops.

then the skies burst. we hiked down from the treetop walk in an honest-to-goodness rainstorm -- my jeans were squeaking water out of the back pockets (i did not know this was possible). by this time, my opinion of my new nike cross-trainers (bought the previous evening) had gone off the scale as they were holding up fabulously, none of that irritating squee-squee-squee sound that comes with every step in a pair of wet rubber shoes.

a long trek out via a country club/golf course road, a shivering cold cab ride, and i was rudely plunked back into sanitized suburbia, yearning to be swept back into a black hole.