Beach, Meatballs, Ice Cream

Yesterday, we were at the Punggol Beach as part of the school outing.  The objective was to clean up the beach as the latter was quite dirty with junk that the tides brought in.   Since I am staying in the East, I decided to drive to the destination myself instead of joining the school buses.  (That was after I have googled the maps the night before thinking, it should be an easy drive with fewer cars on weekdays ;) 

We set off in the morning after the rain has stopped.  But my son was not euthusiastic about this trip and kept mentioning "It is so boring!".  I guess the teachers had informed them what they were supposed to do at the beach and what they would expect.  Might sound uninteresting just to clean up the beach though.   To motivate him, I told my boy that there was a beautiful lily pad at the Punggol Point Park as well as a sand playground!  After we passed the HDB estate and the Punggol waterway park, we were flanked by line of tree through the short winding stretch of road leading to Punggol Point.  And finally at the last leg of the straight road, my son was literally thrilled by our car went uphill and downhill!  I joined in the fun pretending we were on a roller-coaster ride.

We were early and the school buses have not reached yet.  We snapped a few pictures around the lily pad and promenade.  Thereafter, we headed towards the jetty.  My son spotted boxes of fresh fruits at the end of the jetty.  Shortly after, a motorboat gradually docked beside ready to embark.  The sight of a few men made me feel nervous and immediately, I signalled my son to go.  Upon reaching the Police Post at the Jetty entrance, an officer asked "Did you get out from the boat?"  I was annoyed at the remark.  What makes him think that a mother and a child could be "one of them". 

Finally at 9.40am, the first school buses arrived and by 10.00 am, all the school children were at the beach.  Each and everyone was given a pair of plastic gloves and teachers have tongs with them.  All geared up and ready to clean up the beach. There were a lot of litters in particular little pieces of styrofoam and plastics.  The children even found man's bermuda, clothes, a sneaker shoe, a tire (shown in the picture above), part of deadfish (I think).  Apart from the litters, they also discovered seaweeds, tiny crabs and shells!  The weather began to turn quite humid and hot close to noon.  But the chidren did not care.  Sweaty little heads ate their snacks, drank water and those who finished first made their way to the sand playground.  It was the highlight of the outing for the kids and also, the end of the school excusion.  But not us yet!

We went to Ikea Tampines for lunch. My son has his favourite swiss meatballs and I ordered a baked chicken leg that come with a fruit juice and a chocolate cake totalling $15.30.  He also has an hour of funtime at Småland for the first time!  We ended the day with a soft ice cream which is only $0.50 each!  I was puzzled why the cashier gave me two tokens and two cones without ice cream on it after I have paid.  The staff did not bother to explain and I, too, did not care to ask.  Then, I noticed people queuing at these ice cream machines.  Cool!  And I only discovered it yesterday..haha...

It was a fun and enjoyable outing despite the hot hot weather.  We love it and will be back again!!