Over the weekend, my church’s youth service held its annual retreat – Silence & Solitude in the beautiful Bin tan Lagoon.

As the name implies, the retreat is meant for the youth service leaders to get a nice, quiet and relaxing break away from Singapore and to get some time alone with God. For such a purpose, Bin tan is really a terrible terrible place.

Upon stepping off the bus onto the lobby of the resort, we were bombarded with brochures – brochures containing info on all the very very tempting activities to do like wake boarding, jet skiing, go-karting, paintball, and the etc. Then we get to drive cool little golf buggies around the resort to the beach, where there’s volley ball, beach soccer and of course the babes. And to make matters worse, right outside my hotel bungalow are tennis & futsal courts. Wah lau eh, like that how?

Well…

Beautiful weather

Beautiful beach

Beautiful lodging

they have cable here? orh norh...

Rule no.1 - The buggy is not a toy

Sundown Shootout

IR is good for Singapore

All the happy campers

Finally some silence & solitude!

But hey don’t get me wrong, we are good Methodists who are very disciplined and even though we know how to have fun, we also know when to distance ourselves and sit before the Lord and hear His voice. And that, is actually when the real fun starts…

Now Tuesday, 30 May 06 would be a truly joyous day for many of my contemporaries who can finally and officially say the magical words but for me, I was going back to Pulau Tekong.

2 years have past since I packed up my bags from "island life, loving it!" and moved on to gayer, I mean greener pastures. In 2004 I left as a bald recruit, but in 2006, I made my return, as a happy photographer for the "Tekong Recruits Evening" organised by my company. As I got ready to board the boat, I vividly remember how sitting in that "Penguin Fast craft" on Sunday nights was one of the most depressing occasions in a young mans life. However this time it was all high spirits, for the sun, sand and sea of Tekong was a much needed break from all that
sitting-in-the-air-con-office-work.

Walking through my old company line and experiencing the "Tekong Sun" once again brought back fond memories, but it also gave me a wild idea. Maybe carrying all the equipment around in the heat fried a few brain cells or maybe I was just getting too excited from seeing people actually marching again. Whatever inspired me, I don't care, but my crazy thought was, "Don't you think Pulau Tekong would make an excellent tourist attraction?" And here are my reasons:

1) To be truly honest, and for anyone who has been there I am sure you would agree with me, BMTC is visually really quite a nice place. I would even go so far as to say that it would give you a very resort-ty feel if there wasn't such a spirit of depression hanging over its gates. And tourists wouldn't have that spirit so it would be great. Plus, with all the recruits marching too and fro, together with all the cool songs they sing and stuff, I think it would be a great tourist attraction! Not to be rude but imagine some type of 'zoo' of sorts.

2) And if you are a girl who has ever had any male friends who’ve been through BMT, I’ll bet my last OIL that they couldn't stop talking about it whenever they booked out. That’s precisely so because Tekong is packed with fun activities which would be great for tourists! Like for example going to the IMT (Individual Marksmanship Training) where they can shoot a simulated M16 or go on Toner rides through the jungle to see the famous Tekong wild boar and giant spiders.

3) Next, tourists will leave with a good sample of Singapore’s fighting fit 3G army as Tekong is the ultimate place of 'wayang'. That no one can deny. Recruits marching EVERYWHERE, with perfect manners as they greet everyone that passes, along with all the uniformity (the whole bald is beautiful thingy), I mean seriously if I was a tourist, I would be damn impressed and maybe even a little intimidated.

4) So Tekong as a tourist attraction would be a good & profitable excuse to showcase our military prowess and w/o giving away anything classified. I justify that statement as there are school trips to Tekong all the time and anyway half the population (all the males) has already seen the place so logically there shouldn't be anything so secret that people out of the country cannot see or know about.

5) Also, morale would increase for the troops as they would get to see hot Japanese tourists & that would also give them increased incentives to train & perform well as there would be pretty women watching.

6) The Canteen/Cook house would be given a real economic reason to up their standards as tourist come. This would then in turn benefit the troops as well who would eat the improved standard of food.

7) Business for the E-mart (SAF mart which sells really happening stuff like inflatable pillows and sleeping bags along with the usual uniforms & other accessories) would improve and they can make real money as opposed to SAF credit as it would be a great souvenir shop for the tourists.

There, 7 convincing reasons to open the gates of Tekong for the world to get a taste of "Island life, loving it". So if anyone from the Ministry of Trade and Tourism Dept chance upon this article, consider ya?

Anyway my trip back to tekong wasn't mainly about day dreaming, and to prove it, here’s proof of the photography work I did:












Loving it.
P.s. Kudos to all my friends who have just ORD.