Pulau Ubin, here I come. Damn.

Why is it that people are constantly surprised that I have never been to Pulau Ubin in my life? Is that a place everyone must visit at some point? Exactly what is the attraction of landing on your head after you’ve been flung off your bicycle or jumping off a quarry cliff only to be intercepted before you hit the water by a pleasant outgrowth of rock?

And yet, every single time I tell someone “Ah, I’ve never been to Ubin” their faces contort such that their eyebrows almost touch and they let out this wail of surprise as if I’d just told them that I like to spend my afternoons plucking bits out of babies. The asses.

And so what if I like to spend my afternoons plucking bits out of babies?

Alas, the day has finally arrived. Tomorrow, this blogger will be shipped together with a few other unwilling participants over to that wretched island. Oh no, we haven’t been enrolled in some OBS course. No, that would be unthinkable. We’re just going there to take some pictures and try to produce a nice brochure but that’s bad enough. Danger lurks everywhere on that island. All over the place there are bicycles careening back and forth, people jumping off cliffs and a certain breed of human for whom “belay” has some alternative meaning other than the past tense of “belie”. It takes a brave man to survive such a place. And God, or whatever supernatural being you worship, willing, I will. Wish me luck.

Of course. The past tense of "belie" isn't really "belay". It's "belied".