Discover my world as I live it.

Before i start on today's post proper, I'd like to add that in my social butterfly mode yesterday, i also met linghan (after lunch at YIH) and ChiaYee (on bus ride home) and...yan again (also on the bus ride). Damn qiao.

Okie, thank god for mothers...wahha. Jeremy was supposed to pick me up around 6.30 a.m this morning and though i set my alarm clock for 5 something a.m, I managed to crawl out of bed, put on my specs, slam the alarm button down and trudge back to bed. Then, while i slumbered on in sweet procastination (just 5 more mins!!), my mom barged into the room. And thank heavens she did cuz it was 6.15 a.m by then!!!! HOLY CRAP!!

I don't really know how I did it but I was severely multi-tasking, brushing my teeth and combing my hair while i...i think i'll spare you the details but that's how it was. Miraculously, I was all ready in ten minutes!! And luckily, he was slightly late so i even had time to pour over yesterday's report on National Day celebrations. Score one!!

The drive to Lim Chu Kang mangroves was rather uneventful except for the slight traffic jam along Bukit Timah Rd (as usual). Oh but the NUS pickup truck was a horror...Not because it was a manual and rather old but because it was simply annoying. You know how some taxis when they exceed a certain speed, some sort of bell chimes to alert the driver? Well, now recall the sound of the indicator (the arrow thing you use when you want to turn) and imagine it ten times louder and a hundred times more annoying as this stupid thing sounds when we are only traveling at a measly 60KM/H!!!!! sheesh...

When we finally reached the place, my first impression was 'yucks'. The place was littered with refuse such that the beach was not really a beach but just rotting sand. There were quite a few old boats lying around and they looked unusable. As we made our way along the rotting 'beach', we finally found where we were supposed to be. Our exact instructions coupled with a weird map were: "Walk along until you come across an obvious gap in the vegetation and there is a small stream nearby."

I was a little squemish about what we were supposed to do and truthfully, I didn't even know how i was going to walk at all in that place.

Let me talk abit about mangroves for the benefit of the uninitiated. According to 'A Guide to the mangroves of Singapore 1', mangroves refer to the highly adapted plants found in tropical intertidal forest communities or the ecosystem itself.

And mangroves are accessible on foot during low tides which in my case was this morning. However, when the water recedes, the ground is still terribly water-logged (with the consistency of quicksand!) and peppered with pneumatophores (those air breathing roots that stick out from the ground)=my stepping 'stones'. Somehow in typical yilin fashion, i managed to get myself stuck in the mud up to my knees. It was more embarrassing than dangerous though. One moment i was trying to navigate my way across the stream to get to the other side where all my precious spiders happen to be and the next, a misplaced step or two and I was trapped.

"Er, Jeremy? I think I'm stuck."

"Er, okay. I'm coming."

The most embarrassing (or funny if you like) part of this whole escapade was when Jeremy was trying (key word!!) to pull me out. It was bad...I could feel the slip on shoes that i wore (my sports shoes are white and no way am i going to dirty them!) basically...going to slip off. At first, I tried scooping the mud away with my hands to free my leg but this didn't work. And with every move I made, more noxious hydrogen sulpide gas or swamp gas escaped from the soil. As Jeremy kindly informed me later, H2S was produced by the bacteria in the soil. After some struggle, it became apparent to me that the only way i was going to pull my leg out was to forgo the shoe first. But going shoesless with just socks (which were white and now in the trash) around in the mangroves is not a great idea...trust me. So I reached back into the mud and pulled out my previously green shoe...which by now, was a brown gooey mess.

Finally, I was freed. Gathering whatever dignity i could muster, I swipped off the excess mud from my shoes and slipped them on again. I don't think i could ever look at my hands and legs the same way again.

Strangely though, once I was dirty, things started looking up. We managed to find this roundabout route that allowed me to cross over to the other side (via discarded planks, plastic (?), more roots and this fallen mossy trunk on which i had to perform a balancing act). Oh the other side where the moss was greener (okie, now I'm being corny...gotta stop), was that oh-so-impt tree. There were so many trees in the mangroves and my spiders JUST had to choose to live in the most inaccessible one. At least, the tree was not that deep in mangroves or I would be in deep shit (on second thought, I already was. Ewww!!) and the tree was SHORT!! Actually, it was more sapling than tree. Thank heavens for this. You may think this is trivial but I'm short okay???!!!

Busied about with my plastic container and soon all 30 of my containers were filled. My spiders built their nests on the undersides of leaves and it not your typical charlotte's web but more of a mass of silk to form a covering. The tree was a haven for my species of jumping spiders. It was just teeming of it...almost under every leaf i looked was a spider. The sad part was that there seemed a severe lack of males. Hmmm, such things even run in Singapore's wildlife. That's really sad.

Oh, i'm also quite pissed at myself for only bringing 30 containers. Crap, this means that I have to go back again. After this account, I doubt there would be any takers...xyz...er you kinda agreed. ahah...

As I made my way back, most of the mud had started to cake and it felt as though i was wearing mud boots. Interestingly, I didn't dislike the feeling. It felt rather therapeutic actually. This puts a whole new perspective to mud masks. Wahaha...

Am exhausted...note to self: boil clothes.

Ciao~

Author's note: The author maintains that upon reaching home after housing and feeding her spiders, she took a long and extremely hot shower to rid herself of leftover pond scum.