Adventures in Mandai.

Adventures in Mandai.
music: dawn landes - young folks

After much talk, Jinli and I finally got our asses down to the Night Safari over the recent weekend. It's my first trip, and her first since her primary school days.


The must-take shot in front of the Night Safari sign.

I finally got to dine at Bongo Burgers after reading about it about it almost two years ago in some magazine. I don't think it was worth the anticipation though.


Bongo beef burger; entry stamps; my unknown extended family of philantrophists, haha.


I felt like a nerd wandering around the trails in my specs but I couldn't see to well in the darkness; trying to be funny; we climbed on top of chairs for this shot with the b&j sign.


We climbed the chairs earlier because we didn't spot this sign on ground level. Haha. It's the time of the night.

So there we were mucking around, climbing chairs and imitating animals, when the sound of lowering shutters caught my attention. We ran to the exit, only to find that the shutters were down. We ran around abit in the quiet, before we located a few staff idly chatting in the darkened Bongo Burgers restaurant who directed us to an alternative exit. Phew.

We waited quite a while for Jinli's parents to come pick us up, and by 1:15 a.m., the staff, and even the empty cabs waiting for passengers had left.

She was quizzing me on my Malay vocab, when I suddenly saw a flash of white from the corner of my eye. I turned. Nothing. It was a dead end. Almost immediately, the cloyingly sweet smell of frangipanis filled the air.

Me: Eh babe, do you smell flowers?
Jinli: Now that you mention, yes.

The smell got stronger, and as much as we tried to focus our attention on my Malay notes, I could feel my body entering into fight or flight mode.

Thank goodness her parents called then, and we decided to walk towards the main road instead of sit foolishly in the cloud of fragrance.

The smell disappeared as we walked out, then returned, after which we saw her parents' car.

The final straw? There weren't any frangipani trees in the area. Shudder.