I was hopelessly lost somewhere in Geylang yesterday. Was supposed to meet a few friends for lunch at Paramount Hotel at 11.45am. I finished my meeting in Pandan area at 11.30am. If I took the AYE towards ECP, I would have reached there on time.

I was talking to Gu, as usual when I'm on the expressway, on the cell phone. I was too engrossed and missed the ECP exit. That's my first mistake. I took next exit at Merchant Road and thought I could cut through town and re-enter ECP.

I was somewhere in town and then I thought why should I go onto ECP again. I could go by Mountbatten Road instead. This was my second mistake. So I drove down Eu Tong Seng Street towards Victoria Street. I was supposed to turn onto a side road at the Sims Ave to go onto Mountbatten Road. But I realised I missed that turning after I passed it. Damn the road signs! Can't LTA put the road signs way ahead of turnings?

Anyway I missed that turning and went much further down. I was trying to decide whether to do a U-turn back onto Geylang Road or to carry on. But as the traffic was rather heavy I decided to go down Sims Ave and turn off at Tanjong Katong instead. That was another bad mistake. I was caught in a traffic jam.

And would you believe it? I missed that Tanjong Katong turning too! WTF! This time I was distracted by a phone call. It was already 12.10pm and I was still nowhere near my destination. And the traffic was unbelievably bad. The road diversions didn't help at all. And after driving another 10mins, I had no idea where I was.

Well, I tried to stop at the roadside to check the road directory to get my bearings. I never really like this latest edition, and I almost want to toss that %#@! book out of the window. I already had my hazard lights. But this stupid taxi came up behind me and started honking. Had no choice but to move off.

Anyway I managed to get my destination at 12.45pm. So a would-have-been-15 min drive took me 1 hour. Most embarrassing.

Moral of the story? Turn off my phone when I'm on the road.

Labels: Ramblings

When Gu told me Steve Irwin got stung by a stingray, my immediate reaction was "stingray can sting people one meh? " Forgive my Singlish, but I was shocked!

Apparently Steve was swimming in shallow waters on the Great Barrier Reef filming a documentary segment for his daughter's upcoming TV show. He was directly over a bull stingray when the stingray's barb came up, pierced his chest and punctured his heart. It was really a freak accident.

I've seen live stingrays before and always thought those to be rather passive sea creatures. It's common to find stingrays in local food stalls. In fact I just had grilled stingray at Newton Food Centre 2 days ago!

Poor Steve. What a horrible way to die. He's always so enthusiatic and larger than life on screen. I guess I never give much thought about it. But all of them naturalists put themselves in much risks to bring us all those documentaries, don't they?

Labels: Ramblings