Exhilaration and Soreness

An odd mix; but temporally disparate.

I went for my walk along the beach yesterday morning, I chose to head 'down' the beach, that is south and westwards for me, towards the city and away from the airport. Down near the end, where the path heads inland to the bottom of Fort Road a loud aeroplane noise caught my attention, as it does when it sounds only a few hundred metres up. Mainly, I guess, because it was only a few hundred metres up.

An F16, grey and unladened, was zooming in, landing gear lowering, on its way to Changi Airforce Base (yes, there are two airports at Changi, the commercial one, and the defence force one a little north and inland). A few minutes later a second came in, the wingman I guess. Five minutes later another pair came in, separated by a minute or two. What a total buzz!!

BUT THEN...

Another few minutes and I hear another, different...

AN F5 COMING IN!!!!

My favourite plane; the Northrop (now Northrop Grumman) F5!

I keep heading inland, getting as close as I can to the flight path they had taken, finding some shade under a tree that would not restrict my view. Would there be another? Was the F5 being flown by an instructor that had been directing the pilots in the F16s, or was he flying as an 'aggressor' - in which case there should be a wingman along soon.

A little further apart than the F16s had flown, but yes, another F5 came in.
I was so close!
Open wing mounts and no other ordinance either, whistling as the landing gear was lowered, but not when it was down.
What a dream come true!

This is definitely one thing that I love about Singapore.
It is such a small island nation that the air force has to fly over us all the time. In Australia they have huge empty spaces larger than Belgium to train in, so you hardly ever see them.


Had lunch with Ivy. Spent a long time listening to her friend tell me about her recently departed cat. Got given an email address of a girl that works there. Ivy is the only person I have met in Singapore that can make a lemon, lime, and bitters - the drink that is so fundamental to Australian culture. I just can't find them anywhere else in SG, everyone else tries to sell me a bitter lemon, which is positively the vilest drink imaginable.

Went walking around Chinatown after that and saw the temple. It was so saddening; all of the Shenist mythology is being contaminated with Buddhism; even Guan Ti (Guan Gong) God of War (and Commerce) is represented via Buddhist tales. This is so like the way Christianity subsumed the Gods of Europe and reduced them to minor roles in the Xian pantheon. I am so saddened at how the Chinese faith is being transformed by this alien culture.

The traditional Chinese beliefs are natural and realistic; whereas Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism are artificial and recent creations. I firmly believe them to be false and shallow. I was so saddened to see this.

Then I walked down to the waterside, then along the river to the new barrage that turns the city river into another reservoir, across the river and along another one a little way to Fort Road. This was going to be the tricky bit; getting this far was okay, and once I was at the start of the East Coast Park walkway I would be okay, but the line connecting the two was unknown to me and didn't make sense on the map. Not helped by the fact that the maps in the Mighty Minds map book don't overlap, so you can't be quite sure that you've connected them correctly.

But down Fort Road just a little way and hey! I could see the pedestrian bridge that connects sections 'A' and 'B' of the ECP (and by that I don't mean the roadway). Easier than I thought! And so I walked all the way from Chinatown back to me apartment halfway along the East Coast. After walking around Chinatown for so long it totalled five and a half hours and I was totally knackered by the time I got home.

A fulsome day; filled by a breadth of experiences.