In the last couple years, I’ve (re)discovered my love of rock climbing. As a child, I always enjoyed the climbing walls at summer camp, and I spent a fantastic afternoon at a climbing gym during a visit to a friend many years later. I should have put all of this together and taken the opportunity to go to the climbing gym down the road in my town, but I did not. And then finally, just two years ago, I went to a climbing gym here in Singapore after encouragement from a few friends who climbed regularly.
It literally rocked my world. Climbing has put my mind and body in places I didn’t know I could go. And now that those feelings have been part of my world, I never want to lose them. There is focus on the breath, shutting down of the chatter in the mind, and direction of physical forces to balance the body. There is deliberate movement, tiny adjustment, and sometimes a jump that will either end in a hold or a fall. There’s fear to contend with, certainly, and there’s trust in my partner to catch the fall. Ego crops up more than I’d like and I’m learning to know when to trust the body and when to admit that I am out of my league, when to just reach for the next move and when to take time to rest.
This has been a strange summer holiday but one benefit of it is that I have been able to spend a lot of time climbing after ten weeks off during the circuit breaker. I have felt my body move and stretch and reach and I have grown strong again. The blisters on my hands have hardened into callouses. The strength in my fingers continues to surprise me – there are times when I’m strong and times when I’m not. My legs are bruised. There are scrapes on my elbows. The skin on the fronts of my toes is rough. I have worn through one pair of shoes and started to break in new ones.
Being in Singapore for the summer has also meant that we have been able to get out to the Dairy Farm quarry during the week when relatively few people are out. It rained a lot during the month of June but that has tapered off in the last couple weeks and it has been dry enough to get outside.
This is not what people think of when they think of Singapore. And this is not what you’ll find if you never step away from the MRT stations. But this is here. And it is beautiful.
Climbing outdoors feels very different from climbing indoors. Real rocks are part of the world and they have been weathered by time and the elements rather than bolted on a wall in neat patterns. Routes that would be relatively straightforward if colour-coded inside require thinking and problem-solving outside.
There’s a real humility to looking up and then recognising that the only way forward is to look for the next foothold, the next handhold, however tiny they are. The way forward is to understand how the rock is shaped and formed and how to respond to it. The rock has been there for all of time. I am just a visitor.
The experience of climbing – the smell of dirt, the feel of rock, the sound of leaves in the wind, the tiny toe holds that make all the difference, the exhilaration of being so much a part of the world – this is a way of being that I have come to know. And it is beautiful.
It’s always important to get outside. We know this, and it seems to be increasingly part of collective awareness because there are currently so many restrictions on movement. I am so, so grateful that we’re still able to get out and about in Singapore and I am taking advantage of this simple freedom as much as possible.
Over the weekend, my social cohort and I met early in the morning to take the MRT all the way to Punggol, the northernmost terminus of the North-East Line. From there, we caught the 84 bus to Punggol Waterway Park, is exactly what it sounds like. We were greeted by a turtle pond!
We walked along the path next to the water until we reached the bridge to Coney Island, also known as Pulau (“island” in Bahasa Melayu) Serangoon. Click here to read about the history of the island, which opened to the public in 2015 after ownership changed hands repeatedly beginning around the 1930s.
While much of Singapore looks like this . . .
. . . Coney Island felt like a whole world away.
We heard birds that we don’t hear in the city and saw different flowers, which I really enjoyed.
There were neat mushrooms, too!
It was great to smell the sand and the sea and the sand felt different here than it does in other parts of Singapore.
We walked the length of the island and then turned back to head back to Punggol Waterway Park. It was very hot and we were glad we’d ventured out in the morning. Except for a toilet, there are no amenities on Coney Island so if you’re planning to spend some time there, make sure you rent bicycles before crossing the bridge and stock up on snacks! There’s plenty to eat and drink along the promenade leading to the bridge but nothing but trees and beach once you’re on the island. Trees, beach, and groups of old men fishing.
Since we’re surrounded by glittering skyscrapers, it’s easy to lose sight of what Singapore used to be. And it’s the juxtaposition of the two landscapes that I love.
After four days in three cities in Austria, a beautiful drive through mountains, rolling hills, wind, sunshine, and blue skies led the way to Slovenia. After two nights in Slovenia, I headed into Italy just because “Let’s drive to Italy today” seemed like a fun thing to do. One more night in Slovenia completed this part of the road trip.
Lake Bled
I cannot say enough good things about Slovenia. And I almost don’t want to say anything at all because part of the magic of Slovenia is that it was quiet, though this might also be because I was there in the winter. But anyway, there are a million good things to say about Slovenia. Go see for yourself!
For my first night in Slovenia I stayed in Lesce, a small town in the hills that was close to everywhere I wanted to be but away from the much more popular area of Bled. The quiet, calm solitude was startling (even after a night at a farmhouse in Leoben) and contributed to quiet and calm in my mind, too.
However, I’d heard of Lake Bled in the past and knew I wanted to see it. There’s a castle and a church at the lake and while I didn’t venture up, I know you can actually visit. Instead, I opted for the 6km walk around the lake, which began with afternoon sun . . .
. . . went through a Christmas market celebrating its final night . . .
. . . and ended in the evening’s gathering darkness, though not without a cup of hot wine along the way.
Walking back from dinner that night along a silent street, I noticed the stars. The sky was dark and the stars were bright and the air was cold and I stood outside and just looked. We don’t see often stars in Singapore and when we do, they don’t look like Slovenian stars.
The world of that night was very different to the world of the morning waking up on a farm in Austria.
Lake Bohinj
The next morning, giggling at how I planned to spend my thirtieth birthday playing outside, I drove past Lake Bled to Lake Bohinj. There was snow on the ground as the road descended into another glacial valley and I actually got out of the car to look at the world. It was the magical winter fairytale of childhood that I haven’t seen in a very long time.
Before finding a parking spot at Lake Bohinj that turned out to be illegal, I stopped to visit Slap Savica, the Savica Waterfall. The walk up itself was nice and easy and it was beautiful to look out at the Julian Alps while listening to the rushing water and feeling the cold.
A picnic lunch on a bench in the sun was in order before a walk around Lake Bohinj. Later that day, I’d pay my parking ticket (oops) at the post office. The light on the lake was stunning, as were the mountains surrounding it.
I walked through a sub-alpine meadow and looked down at the lake and up to the mountains and felt the cold and the wind and the air.
There were plants and trees and runoff from the snow creating little rivers and puddles.
Once the sun disappeared behind the ridge and then grew smaller and smaller, it was time to go. It gets bitterly cold at night in January in Slovenia.
The drive to Bohinjska Cesnjica where I spent the night went through narrow twisting roads and tiny towns containing wood and stone guesthouses and farms. Late that night with the weather well below freezing, I walked outside to look at stars. How had I gotten here? How did any of us get here?
Trieste
The next day taught me that I never again want to have a car in an Italian city. I decided to go to Trieste rather than Croatia or Hungary, both of which are relatively nearby, based on the fact that Italy is in the eurozone. I drove through the sunshine and the Alps, which was lovely, and then into a busy city with small cars and limited parking, which was far less lovely. My tip for parking a car in Trieste: Spend a few euro and park in the spacious and huge parking lot at the port. It was easy to find once I knew it existed and the parking machines take coins, notes, and cards.
At least at that time of year, it appeared that all shops and many other establishments closed in the afternoon from 1 or 1:30 until 4 or 4:30, and I arrived close to 1. I had every intention of going back in the evening when shops would be open until 7 or 7:30, but the guesthouse where I spent the night was up a ridiculously narrow, winding road on a hill about 8km outside of town. There was no way I was going down (or up) that road in the dark.
One thing that struck me about Trieste is that this city is old. The buildings were beautiful but they had been standing for a long, long time.
It was also really neat to see a stadium from Roman times next to a car park and an apartment block. I very much love that about Europe.
I also really loved the greengrocer set up in the middle of a piazza.
And of course, there were grand piazze that are probably much busier in the summer.
The history of Trieste’s Jewish community dates back about 800 years and I walked to the synagogue . . .
. . . and through the old Jewish ghetto that was full of (unfortunately closed) quirky shops selling antiquities and used books.
All things considered, a wander through parts of Trieste was a perfectly acceptable way to spend an afternoon before settling into the little guesthouse on the hill. Looking down on Trieste both at night and in the morning was really cool.
Maribor
After a day away, I decided I missed Slovenia. In the morning, I drove to Maribor, Slovenia’s second-largest city. It was a bright and sunny day and not too cold yet, which was perfect weather for a walk. I looked at a map and found Jezero (Lake) Komarnik, which has marked running and hiking trails.
Remaining aware of the sun and the time of day, I chose the shorter of the two paths and found myself first walking along a dike at the edge of a field . . .
. . . and then crunching leaves underfoot in a forest.
There were nature signs posted along the route with information about plants, animals, and ecosystems and even though I didn’t understand any of it, I really enjoyed that it was there. The way a community treats the environment tells a lot about what that community is and what it stands for.
Later in the afternoon I walked through Maribor City Park, which is exactly what it sounds like. A large park in the middle of a city with ponds, old trees, a bandstand, and a nature centre.
On the drive to the park, I spotted signs for Pyramid Hill. As the sun was beginning to set, I followed the walking trail up the hill . . .
. . . through the vineyard . . .
. . . and past the recent excavations of a twelfth century castle.
Signs along the way, including some in English, explained Pyramid Hill and Maribor City Park and it was nice to get a sense of where I was. There are longer walking trails along the back of Pyramid Hill but it was far too late in the afternoon for those.
Once it was dark, I headed into the old town to find the town square, have some wine, and feel European. It grew very cold as night came in but the narrow cobblestones felt good under my feet and I walked until the need to actually feel my toes became urgent.
It had been a wonderful few days and I knew I’d miss Slovenia even before it was time to leave. I spent the last evening curled up reading a novel and researching international schools. This had been a very special adventure and it left me excited for the next day’s journey to Bratislava.
Photos, travels, musings, and ideas on education by someone trying to make the world a better and more peaceful place
By Rebecca Michelle 