View From the Top

Weekends in Singapore have come to mean one thing..... Early Mornings!

Since my days as a student, these have become something of the norm (as for any regular person), but I don't think there is any time that I could go to bed, wake up at 6am and feel OK. I'm pretty sure even if I had twelve hours sleep (which I definitely didn't have), I'd still be tired!

Waking up early in the morning in Singapore is also more arduous because of the heat. We usually sleep with the air conditioning on which means our bedroom is nice and warm. This doesn't apply to the living room or kitchen however and walking into them so early in the morning when it's already getting warm is uncomfortable!

I dragged myself out of bed, still bleary-eyed and left to catch the MRT at 7:00am. We were headed back to Nexus International School this morning for two coaching sessions. One with children aged between 5-6 and another with kids aged between 7-10.

It's funny how all across the world children seem to share similar characteristics. Something I noticed today was how half the kids are in a little world of their own, till the ball hits them or goes near them and then they wake up! I understand a/ they're young, concentration levels aren't at a max, and b/ it's hot and I'm not too sure I'd fancy running about too much either.

We cut our session short today because of the sun, and the fact that so many kids were looking particularly red faced and sweaty. Never mind them, I was getting a bit of a sweat on just standing there! I almost completely drank my litre bottle of water after our session had finished! The reason our sessions begin so early in the morning is because of the weather. The sun obviously is extremely warm at mid-day so we attempt to get finished before then so it's not too hard on the kids.
The younger ones particularly need to get a drink every two seconds, but then again that was the same when I was working at school's in England where it was a quarter of the temperature!

After heading home from work I quickly jumped in the shower and decided to go exploring again. Although I was due to spend a couple of weeks in Indonesia during my stay, I have been asked to stay in Singapore for the entire duration of my visit, so this has allowed me a greater amount of time to explore the city.

I though that seeing as I attempted to go there last week, but failed miserably I would head up to Mount Faber for a spectacular view out over Singapore.
Once again I had to board the MRT and head south, all the way to the further point until I reached a station called Harbor View.

If you remember on my last visit to the station I had to employ my umbrella almost straight out of the gate and instead decided to enjoy a little bit of window shopping therapy. To get to Mount Faber (not actually a mountain, just the title of anything over 100m in height in Asian countries) I had to exit the MRT head away from Sentosa Island and look for the road leading up the track.

There is a cable car which runs from Mt. Faber all the way up to the southern island of Sentosa, so I followed the cables as far as I could. Originally I was following a group of people who were also headed in the same direction, but they seemed to draw a blank on where we were going to I pursued another route and came across some directions pointing to Mt Faber.

What was also a little disturbing was a sign which was at the entry to the trail I was about to climb up that stated the presence of monkeys. Now I wasn't expecting every monkey I came across to be as friendly as Abu from Aladdin, but was slightly concerned as this was the second sign I had read that warned me not to 'cross' the monkeys.

Being brave, and almost wanting to see exactly what would happen if I came across one, I headed up a relatively steep trail to the top of the path. At the summit I was treated to an excellent view out over Singapore, and as is often the way with vertical viewpoints, the higher up you get, the better the view.
The country is known as a relatively low lying land based area, but this view from 100+ meters up was excellent for seeing the skyscrapers of the city against the urban jungle that I was currently in. Following the path of the cable cars you could see across into the island of Sentosa which is the home of Universal Studios and several sandy beaches. 

I walked up as high as I could go, eventually reaching a place called the Jewel Box. This is basically the cable car station, which as you can see, has some strange affiliation with the Angry Birds franchise. There's quite an extautionate fee to ride across to Sentosa, so I just decided to look from a distance, and take some decent photos whilst I was up there.

After some time spent people watching in a swanky restaurant I made my way down to the bottom of the hill (no sign of monkeys, although a snake on the path did scare the hell out of me!) and headed back towards Sembawang.

Check out all the pictures I took today at the bottom of the page! :)

You peaked too soon. You're was what we call a "peak too sooner".