Hougang Herald: Sque and Shagrila

The end of our working week saw a small number of MAE staff meet up at SQue Bar at Clarke Quay to catch-up and share tales from our recent holidays. A number of our regulars were away in Penang for the weekend and others were suffering post-holiday illnesses so the turnout was small, but it was an enjoyable night anyway.
Monday morning we were up early to make our way to Kent Ridge MRT to start our walk. Again our regular numbers were down due to doctor's appointments and breaks away, but Maria brought along her sister, Carmen and Carmen's 2 daughters, Emma and Rachael, to boost our numbers. It was a pleasant walk,of about 8km, although the humidity and temperature with both high. Fortunately Michael was there to keep us on track as Peter, our usual leader was away and we may have gone the wrong way at least once without Michael! Michael's reward was his favourite Green Tea Rice for lunch at Harbourfront.

MAE walking 'family'

related family

Tuesday saw us heading in for a High Tea at the Shangrila with Robert, Maria and their vistors. On the way home I stopped in to visit Libby and get some advice re blogging.
On Friday we decided to explore the northern section of the Rail Trail with Libby, Eric and Bev. This trail follows the original train line that went from Malaysia into Singapore and has now been turned into a walking/biking trail...well most of it has! Before our recent holiday we walked from the end point back to Bukit Timah and today's plan was to walk from the northern end again finishing at Bukit Timah. We got an early start because of the heat and started walking at 9.00 having put in an hour to get to the start point. The walk was quite an adventure...from the walk along the edge of the canal with a bank slope of about 40 degrees, only to be confronted at the end of this with a barb-wire topped fence and a >2metre high padlocked gate. Eric and Bev climbed over but the other three of us sidled passed some razor wire coils and then climbed a much lower fence. Later in the walk we ventured along a rapidly narrowing path through sugar cane taller than Michael. Eventually the path disappeared altogether and we were pushing aside sugar cane plants for a few hundred metres...a machete would have been useful. After 11km in 2 and half hours on a very hot humid morning we were very relieved to arrive at our lunch destination. By the time we arrived home there was time for a bit of a nana nap before heading off to work.