quite accidentally

 (photo from pooja)

i happened to be a small part of history.

well, sort of.

had a hankering for crab bee hoon and met some like-minded friends for dinner at ghim moh block 10. it was a short trip down memory lane, having gone to a high school, that used shipping containers as classrooms, in the very same neighbourhood.

sometime between slurping the xo soup and chomping on har cheong gai i heard the horn of a train that had my hair standing on end. hadn't planned on being around to witness the last train out of tanjong pagar, but on my way to the red house bus stop i used to have to cross the train tracks and the old rusting trains were a big part of my going home routine.

the railway is also part of another important memory to me. the first holiday i ever went on with just friends i.e. no adults was to KL before starting university. being the backpackers on a budget, the eight of us took the overnight train there and i was almost refused entry into malaysia because in my excitement i went a little trigger happy at the customs checkpoint. oops. not one of my prouder moments but a milestone all the same. 

then i suddenly realised i'd friends on the last train and thought of them clinking flutes and sipping their champers. suddenly my xo fish soup didn't cut it anymore :(