a ride with the duckie

Robina and I went down to Suntec City in the afternoon for a jaunt on Duck Tour. we were playing tourists since Robina had not been on the amphibious duck boat before. furthermore it was CNY eve and we don't want to elbow our way down to Chinatown with all the other chinese singaporeans and tourists.

the duck boat was former US military amphibious trucks/transports (DUKW) that were converted and refurbished to ferry tourists. these hydrid craft had served since Normandy to the Korean and Vietnam War. Fans of "Band of Brothers" would recall that the DUKW was used to transport the 101st Airborne down the German autobahn.

it was a pleasant surprise that as locals we were offered a discounted rate of $39.90 for the two of us (regular tourists have to pay $33.30 per head). all the boat tours that day were fully booked and the last tour was at 3.30pm rather than the usual 7pm. our ride were all Taiwanese (plus a few PRC chinese tourists) and we were the only locals on board. The tour guide (a jovial and chatty young man) took one look at our Teva sandals and knew that we were singaporeans. His mandarin commentary was really "sad", Robina nudged me and whispered that I could take over.

The duck boat splashed down into the Kallang River with fanfare and cheers from all on board. All of us waved to the other duck boat that we passed both on the land and the sea journey. the wet part of the ride was really fun and enjoyable. the boat was very stable in the sea! we chugged passed landmarks like the Esplanade (the guide gave the official version of the "lew lian" being modelled after a microphone), the CBD district, the waterfront hotels and the water-spitting Merlion. the taiwanese tourists lapped it all up! :-)

Robina went trigger-happy with the digital camera. she snapped a series of shots of the phallic imagery of the Westin Hotel (now called Swissotel) superimposed onto the housefly eyes of the Esplanade (pics to be uploaded later!). if you scroll thru the pics fast enuff, it becomes an animation!

perhaps having this humongous erotic libido situated right on our waterfront is our "gahmen" way of tweaking Singapore's fengshui to boost our sliding birth-rate!!??