Apart
from exploring the longkang cave in school, there was not really
much a teenager can do in Bishan without getting into trouble. Although,
secondary school was not really the best phase of my life besides
serving NS, I did manage to know a couple of good friends. I spend
a lot of time with this Chinese boy named Dan. No not Dan the “American
Man”.. this is Dan the “Bishan Kid”. And pretty
much my teenage years was spent cycling with him.
Man,
I don’t know how far we cycled but I think we can easily
travel the globe twice. By the end of our O levels, we have buns
of steel and legs of.. hmm iron? Because of how much we spent
on our mountain bikes. One of the hot spots for cycling in Bishan
is the multi-storey carpark near Junction 8. Its one of those
carparks that have this dizzy swirling down path-of-death.. At
least that is what I like to call it. We usually go up to the
top most level.. Sometimes we would wash our bikes with the extinguisher
hose thing which was illegal and we did got caught once but hey
we are still alive now.. but once we are set, we would speed down
as our life flashes before our eyes.
Daniel
and me during our secondary school days.
This is what you get when you spend too much time cycling.
2
things to be aware of when you perform such a mind numbing stunt.
Always look for incoming cars. And 2, the concrete floor on the
swirling carpark have minimal friction so if you want to have
your teeth intact, do slide with your slippers touching on the
ground. Daniel on the other hand is a natural born daredevil,
he always slide with only one foot off and swim RIGHT AFTER meals.
I just don’t know where he gets this nerve of steel from!
Daniel
the wild child!
As
Bishan can be uber boring most of the time, its time to explore
new territories and we usually head to Upper Pierce Reservoir
(UPR). The journey to the reservoir always starts early cause
it’s a long road ahead of us.. The uphill slopes are a
bitch to climb but easy when coming home. When you do reach
UPR, you can actually see… nothing. This is the best place
to dump corpses if you so happen to be a serial murderer and
reading happeepill hoping to get a tip because I never see anybody
here. Me and Daniel would just spend our time skipping rocks.
But there was this one time we infiltrated this “Tempat
Larangan”.
For
those of you who cannot comprehend Government Malay threats,
that means, “Restricted area.” But the weird thing
about this restricted area is that they have no barb wires,
no pictures of man with rifle killing another man.. we all have
seen that sign right, Its just 2 concrete structures with a
chain.. So being curious teenagers, we just went in with our
bikes.
From
how to nab a nice girl to dumping corpses,
Happeepill helps all! :D
We
were expecting to see at least an alien conspiracy, or some military
robot weapon that the government was trying to hide but we just
got bitten by more mosquitoes then suddenly 2 men came out of no
where. Now that was odd. Me and Dan could have strolled naked and
basked in the sun at isolated UPR and nobody would have known and
once we cross this chain thing 2 guys pop up. This ISD government
thing is bloody kilat! But then again, they just might be 2 punks
scaring us.
They scolded us in a gangster kinda way, telling us to read the
sign and this is a restricted area blah blah blah. But me and Dan
have huge egos but unfortunately our 14 year old biceps were not
as big so we said a soft sorry and cycle out fast.. As soon as we
can see them over the distance like ants, we extended our middle
fingers! That would teach them to mess with us!
So that's
why they jack up the GST! They are building a robot!
Now I can sleep in peace!:D
Then
cycling became boring and we learned how to skate instead. Not gay
rollerbalding and rollerskates. I mean skateboarding! Yeah! My skateboard
has this ultra cool skulls on it with black and white stripes which
reminded me of the movie Beetle Juice. But unfortunately, although
we spent hours skating under void decks, we can never execute the
basic ollie. (An ollie is a trick that can get you skater chicks
easily) We could do stationery ollies but once the board start to
move.. the thought of our face landing on the concrete floor, jellyfied
our legs.
So we invented sissy tricks instead like; who can brake the longest
or who can reach the can drink machine and buy a 100 plus the fastest..
I know it’s lame but hey at least we can still chew solid
food! Yeah!
Learn
to Ollie! If I had YouTube back then, I think I would have been
a better skater!.. or maybe not.
But
there was this one incident when a gangster from school asked and
borrowed Daniel’s board to take it for a spin. When I said
“asked” I mean he threatened us and when I say “borrowed”
that means he can return the board to us when he’s ready.
I thought secret society members were only good at giving you a
black eye but this guy was skating like Tony Hawk! Never judge a
book but its tattooed dragon arm! (Whatever that means.) He even
took our haversack and ollied across it! He practically flew over
them… he looked like an angel when he was high in the sky
but when he land he looked like the gorilla that he is.
He look so different when he's flying.
Oh
well, around skating phase I was also introduced to rock songs.
I don’t really listened to music cause I was too preoccupied
with cycling and…. Then a thai kid from…Thailand.
(Duh!) kept shoving me with Guns and Roses and kept singing Sweet
Child of mine with his Thai accent.
Actually I can’t accept Axl Rose wailing at first. But after
countless hours hanging around with the Thai kid screaming, November
Rain in lifts, going home, during recess, playing basketball,
in the cave… you can’t help but get bitten by the
GnR bug and soon I was scouting for my own copy of Use Your Illusion
Part 2. All of them said it was a banned album but why the heck
does the music stores displayed them posters publicly? I guess
listening to banned songs makes you a cool kid in school?
Besides
whizzing down multistory carparks of hell, playing air guitar and
mimicking Slash and trespassing in restricted areas, there’s
this thing that we did that tops it all. It’s called the Death
Squad and I’ll cover that soon.
That sound so geeky,
it’s not even funny anymore,
Evil Bunny!
