Sunday Picnic

They thought of a gathering, a simple picnic. Wow. Sure. I was looking forwarding to it. They said they will think of a nice venue and then inform me accordingly. The little gathering (a simple picnic) is today but only yesterday, I received the map via electronic means. Looking at the map, I went numb for a while. I admit the silly thought of backing out crossed my mind. But 放飞机 is just not my style.

The place is just too familiar. I don’t need the map actually. When they verbally mentioned about the venue yesterday, I had no idea they were actually referring to that.
不知不觉中，我好像是在回避一些地方。
或许是某一些地方让我想起了一些人、一些事。我好失败，我想。

Nevertheless, I proceeded on with their kind planning. And when I drove into the car-park, many scenes were flooding my mind. I was not really feeling too good.. erm.. I ought to be more in control, I told myself. I managed to, I guess.

Okay, back to that place.
We spent a relaxing time there in the morning. Okay, a sneak preview of how relaxing it was :

We were impressed by the different birds we saw there. The only grouse would be my camera is just not meant to capture birds. There was this tiny weenie bird, totally scarlet, happily pecking the flowers in front of all of us, not more than 3 metres away from us. This bird was not even mentioned in the “birds-you-see-here” signboards placed around. We were also treated with a pair of exotic birds parading less than 2 metres away from us. I read the signboards later and learnt that it is called White-Crested Laughingthrush. I googled the name and this was what I got

Most of the time, we were talking over the food kindly prepared by the ladies. I think that was so cool. We had

And I spilled my cup of soya drink. :(

I think the flora there is kind of rich also. Not long after I’d reached, I captured some shots, I quite like.

Ha. But just before we intended to explore the area, it started pouring and we were trapped. Kids when trapped do this :

The adults? OMG, they were so prepared. They were studying ??!! Haha..

If the weather was better, we would have seen more. I have yet to “survey” the summit. I heard the view is awesome. One of these days, I think I will be back. Yes, back to this same place that brings me.. erm.. mixed feelings.

This place is Bukit Batok Nature Park (BBNP).

Allow me to also mention how we made the exit out of the park today. I think it was quite funny. It was still raining, but we were tired of waiting as we don’t have enough umbrellas for the eight of us. But we got to get back home to do other stuffs. I tell you, we did it the grand way. We noted we had brought along some white ground-sheets. We made one of these our "umbrella" and we “snake” out of BBNP together. The ground sheet is about 1 metre by 4 metres. 4 of us stood in a single file along the length of the ground sheet, picked up the ground sheet and placed it slightly over our heads. And we walked (or was that marching?) under the rain that way. We can’t help laughing our lungs out. I tried imagining the aerial view of our act, from high above, through the canopy of the park. We must have looked much like a big fat white snake trespassing BBNP.

Oh, let me insert a picture showing you the actual ground :

(I shall try to process the other photos some other time...)