Tekong Day Trip #2

Yesterday night, I received a SMS from my PC, asking me to go back to Tekong the next morning to retrieve my belongings and sign some forms. Which meant that I had to wake up early this morning, something that does not happen very often nowadays.

And I left right in the middle of the morning rush hour. I realised it was a bad decision later on, when I was caught in massive traffic jams. Because I had not factored traffic jams in my travel plans, it meant that I would probably be late for the 1030 ferry from SFT. So at Pasir Ris, instead of waiting for service 89, I tried to hail for a taxi, but there were none, so I gave up and took the bus to SFT instead.

Therefore, I arrived at SFT 15 mins late. So no choice, got to take the ferry that departs 1 hour later instead (ie. wait for 45 mins). But before I got to wait for the ferry, I was tekkaned by the security trooper at the guard post. He was very niao, criticising my bearings, like my hair, facial hair, fingernails, etc. Hey, back at school, this kind of bearings was acceptable, OK? He was just too particular about my bearings, and wanted me to do something about it in Tekong, or else he'll book me when I leave SFT later. After he allowed me to move on, I thought, "I certainly can shave my facial hair, cut my nails, but what about my hair? How to find Tekong barber? Tekong barber got on-call service meh?"

While waiting for the ferry, I did some Sudoku puzzles, and also alerted my commanders that I didn't make it for the 1030 ferry ... and after quite some time, it was 1130 hrs, and I boarded the ferry, along with some other recruits/contractors. And of all kinds of shows to broadcast at that time, Channel 5 broadcasted some home shopping commercials. And of all kinds of products to promote, bras were being promoted. Therefore there were closeups of ... ahem ahem. So let's just say that this is how I felt:

When the ferry arrived at TFT, I went on a slow stroll back to P coy line, with a stranger who was going to PTMC. I guided him for most of the way, and when I reached P coy safety corner, I pointed him to a straight path leading to PTMC. Then I saw some platoon mates who were resting at the safety corner. I later found out that they were excused from the GP rehearsals, so they were just resting. And there I sat with the rest of the status people until the rest came back for (packed) lunch. Then I was told to pack all my stuff upstairs.

Finally, I went upstairs to pack my stuff (why couldn't this instruction be given earlier?). Then as I packed my belongings slowly (I needed to figure out how to pack my stuff in the most compact manner), my section mates came into the bunk, as they finished their lunch and it was their rest time now. When everyone came back from lunch, somebody commented, "It's been a while since everyone is here." Yeah, I thought, quite a while indeed.

Once I packed all my belongings, I returned the store items (my UMPC was gone already), and was ready to leave Tekong. Except that it was nearing 1400 hrs, which meant I would miss the ferry departing at that time. So I thought, might as well have my lunch first. Lucky there was an extra packet, so I took my time for lunch. As I had my lunch, the COS decided to get boxes of ice cream from the cookhouse, and then distributed them to the status people; apparently there was a surplus of ice cream as many people had packed lunch instead of going to the cookhouse for lunch. The COS even gave ice cream to the contractors that came to the coy line - LOL!

Then I asked the COS to issue me an off-pass. Since he was eating ice cream, he asked me to complete the off-pass on his behalf. So I essentially wrote my own off-pass - how cool is that?

Fast-forward a bit, and I was on the 1500 ferry out of Tekong. And when I reached the guard post of SFT, there was also another recruit that was apparently caught for hair length. Apparently, he was also an OOT personnel. So I told the security trooper (thank god it's a different fella!) that I also OOT from BMT, here to collect my stuff. Thank goodness he didn't book me; he merely told me to "screw off" from Tekong. Phew!

So that kinda marks the end of my second day trip into Tekong. And oh boy, time does flies - it's already 6 weeks into my MC, and my section/platoon mates will POP this coming weekend!