I've been wanting to bring my car into Singapore since March. As usual, I procastinated, simply because there were a lot of things that needed to be done - taxes, church events, weddings, etc.
Early August, while having breakfast after our Kepayang Hill exercise, Esther asked (err.. she actually pestered me) if we could go to Singapore before September. I mentally looked at my schedule. Every Saturday was filled with things to do... except for the last Saturday of August. I happily said "okay" to this date. A few days later, it suddenly dawned upon me that it's a long weekend for Malaysia because of Independence day. A sudden recollection of a long 4.5 hour jam on the second link a few years ago came into mind. Gulp! Do I want to go through that again?
I talked to Esther about it and she was confident that the traffic would be smooth. When I told Rajen about it, all he said was "All the best" because he also remembered the longest Singapore-Seremban drive he suffered through in his entire life.
Two weeks later, someone mentioned that it's the start of the Singapore school holidays! Double Gulp! I asked Esther again, "Do you REALLY need to go?"
August 30th came. I slept past 2am and woke up at 3.15am. Got ready and waited 1/2 hour for Esther to come. I left my car at my parents' place for Esther to drive. I told her that I don't want to wake up 10 minutes early to fetch her.
From my place, we picked Matthew and Min Chee and headed for the highway. It was 4.54am.
I noticed the "OD Off" next to the pedometer of my car but was too tired to figure out why that light came on. I dozed off to sleep intermittently while Esther and Min Chee talked. Matthew slept too.
We were supposed to stop at the Machap R & R but we missed it! I couldn't ever imagine missing such a big rest area with many sign boards along the highway.
Two reasons why we missed it:-
1 - The signboards, which were supposed to be reflective, lost the reflective-ness. We couldn't really read what was printed on the signboards. Esther mentioned something about 3M losing the business many years ago and the govt used products that are cheaper ... and of course, lower grade.
2 - It was really foggy at that time of the morning
Esther was looking for the fog lights. I didn't even know there were fog lights. Shows how little I know about my car. Min Chee, from the back, was trying to look for the fog light lever. She then noticed the "OD Off" light and asked about it.
To cut a long story short, OD Off means OD on. I told Esther to press the button near the gear stick and the light was gone. RPM went from 4000 to 2500. And the car ran so much smoother. I just hope there is not much damage done to the engine.
We stopped at the Gelang Patah R&R at 7.30am. Filled out our forms and filled up petrol.
There was hardly any traffic at the immigration on the Malaysian side. We proceeded to cross the bridge and arrived at the Singapore Immigration in 5-10 minutes. Not many cars there either. Phew! We stopped for a while to purchase the auto pass card. It was a simple and quick procedure.
With a map in hand, I navigated while Esther drove. We arrived at Orchard road at 9.30am with no problems at all. We parked at the open car park near Borders and looked for breakfast.
After breakfast in Takashimaya, I was on my own. Esther, Min Chee and Matthew followed Patrick.
As usual, I went to all the craft shops I knew - Borders, Takashimaya and Plaza Singapura. I didn't really buy a lot of stuff this time ... which is good cause I'll be going to Singapore again this weekend.
We met for dinner at Crystal Jade in Takashimaya and left Singapore at 8.30pm. Our aim was to arrive at the PD toll by 11.30pm.
Once again I was nervous because there might be a big jam at the Immigration. True enough, 2.5km before arriving there, we came to a stand still. We were there for an hour - which is not too bad, actually.
By the time I arrived home, it was about 1am! I was really tired, partly because I was talking to Esther in the car. I really wanted to doze off but knew that if she didn't talk to anyone, she might feel sleepy. I think, half the time I didn't know what I was talking about.
We calculated ... from the time we left our houses to the time we came back was 20.5 hours. What a looong day for us.
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