Night Cycling!!

Night Cycling!

This is an activity so niche, everyone has different ideas of it, each treating it in their own way. Some view it as simply cycling in the night, with all the bells and whistles so proper to cycling, but I regard it as a grand nocturnal adventure lasting till the next morning, with a loosely defined route you don't even have to follow and rules you don't even have to obey! It's about the journey, not the destination.

The first night cycling I ever attended, on the 23rd of December 2005, was a large affair, with 35 participants divided into two groups and travelling on a mixture of pavement and road (mostly pavement). There was no fancy traffic police or even a safety van tailing us ("Ain't nobody got time for that!") and as far as I know, the only administrative matter was the actual rental of bikes from the shop, which we got at the bulk price of $7, red lights included. We were extremely lucky that nothing serious happened. Travelling from East Coast Park to City Hall via Geylang, Kallang, and the Esplanade, with such a large number of participants (some of whom were not so experienced themselves), was no joke. The only mishap—namely, a broken handlebar—was treated with good ol’ duct tape and a dollop of confidence. By the end of it we felt like we had completed a marathon. Such adventure! It was a definitive experience by which all subsequent night cyclings were measured.

Myself, Nadiah, Nasyiba (binti Sahari ;), Yazid, Ira, Gabriel, Idham. And behind the camera is Hasyim =)

This time we were a smaller group of 8, still more than 4 (thankfully), but much more manageable than 35! (Previous night cyclings had averaged only 4 attendees out of more than 10 invited.) The unique thing was that each of us didn't know more than 3 other people in this group. We had decided to open up the activity to any friends as may be sporting enough to join in. Therefore the rest were unknown to us, being friends of friends. Socially awkward, yes, but the good nature and sportsmanship amongst ourselves mitigated the awkwardness somewhat. After settling the rental of bikes and a short supper at Burger King, we began at about 11.30 PM. We headed towards Fort Road at the beginning of East Coast Park.

Sudden roar of Malay kompangs by the sea—perhaps there was going to be a wedding tomorrow!

Just before Fort Road, we stole into an underpass and magically emerged near Jalan Daliah on the other side, in order to avoid the tiresome road crossings at the ECP/Fort Road exit. After inflating tyres & purchasing drinks at Esso we set off in the direction of Tanjong Rhu.

And so night cycling begins in earnest!

Ira nearly got knocked down by a taxi entering the carpark.

I executed a nearly flawless curb jump, much to the chagrin of the rest, who didn't have time to follow suit because I suddenly turned into the kerb.

We soon reached Gardens by the Bay East. Now this is a lesser-known sibling of the popular Gardens by the Bay South, the one with all the supertrees and whatnot. Gardens by the Bay East only contains undulating meadows and little lakes and 'natural' streams—a Botanic Gardens Part 3, if you will. And it is absolutely dark, too! We nearly fell into a lake crossing bridges without railings, my goodness.

That treacherous bridge without railings.

The bottom of Benjamin Sheares.

Marina Barrage, Gardens by the Bay South, the Helix Bridge and finally we were at the 'black' 7-Eleven at Marina Bay Sands opposite Avalon, so-called because the signage is back-lit, creating a silhouette effect. Quite classy.

We reached Sentosa at 2.00 AM (just as planned!) and sought to explore the island a bit. It was quite chaotic, though. Resorts World Sentosa was not built for cyclists (or for that matter, the wheelchair bound) and so we spent an inordinate amount of time circling the place, trying to get somewhere. Finally with advice from Gabriel we climbed ramps and slopes and ultimately went up in a lift, coming face-to-face with the Merlion.

Short break at a convenient 7-Eleven nearby; everybody couldn't tahan, super hungry. Then up a zig-zag ramp in complete darkness, aided only by our night-vision. We ended up behind Mount Imbiah, and from there an excruciating 10-minute climb up a gradual slope to the front of the building.

Then disaster struck!

Gabriel's gears broke! The metal piece attaching them to the rear dropouts gave way and simply split clean into two, leaving a tiny bit of metal still bolted to the dropout. We tried to fix it using cable ties taken from various parts of our bicycles (the girls' hairpins and needles were extremely useful in undoing them) but after barely a moment's cycling, they loosened. Gabriel had to propel himself with his legs all the way to Palawan Beach 7-Eleven, looking absolutely ridiculous seated on a bike with legs flailing.

There we purchased a dishcloth and borrowed a penknife from the cashier. A kind fisherman lent us whatever cable ties he had and two rolls of duct tape, and we managed to string everything together in a sustainable fashion, only needing Gabriel to adjust the derailleur every few minutes or so to keep the chain on the right track. The only drawback of it was that he was restricted to the 'granny' gear (read: lowest gear) behind. Well at least he'd have no trouble climbing slopes.

It was now 6 AM. Three hours wasted on this most unfortunate occurrence. Since it was already morning prayer time for the Muslims, we headed towards the mosque opposite Vivocity, using one "heck of a shortcut" back to the Merlion, as Hasyim would put it.

Nadiah's chain came off at the entrance of the bus park. Whilst fixing it a bus suddenly appeared out of nowhere and swerved into the bus park, nearly hitting us in the process! Crazy bus driver.

And there I was wondering what the name of the mosque was. Wak Tanjong lah, Wak Temenggong lah. Actually the full name, as written in Jawi script at the entrance was Masjid Temenggong Daeng Ibrahim, Johor Darul Takzim. My Jawi was not so bad after all! #achievementunlocked

We rode back by the safest way, which was exactly the way we came. Gabriel's gears held up excellently. It could even correct itself if the chain came off, after lots of rattling and clicking. Thank God for the cable ties!

By the time we reached the end of Gardens by the Bay East, I could see signs of zombification. According to Arshak (an associate of mine from the DMIT Club), when you're suffering from lack of sleep, two things can happen: either you become super tired or you're super high. Both were apparent. Idham, having cycled his own bike from Pasir Ris the night before (and had to cycle back there later!), looked ghastly pale. Hasyim, on the other hand, was yelling at the top of his voice! His headphones lent little credence to the fact that he was singing along to an MP3 player.

Eventually we reached East Coast Park. We stopped at a shelter just before the bike shop to clean up the cable ties around the damaged derailleur and make it presentable. The plan was to simply return the bikes and not say a word. I mean, it wasn't our fault! Nothing was lost, only wear and tear caused by a lack of maintenance. I got back onto my bike to cycle to the shop. It was then I heard a curious squeaking sound.

My rear tyre was flat.

Aiyah.

What the—? Of all things to happen at this time?! We resolved to walk the short distance to the bike shop. Lucky we were nearly there!

Hasyim went first, followed by myself. The bike shop man didn't notice the flat tyre. I handed him the red lights we detached from the bikes to get the cable ties, saying that they "came off". Gabriel rolled his bike in. The man glanced over the bike.

"This one, spoil ah?"

He eyed the derailleur, peacefully wrapped in its cocoon of duct tape. Our hearts froze.

"Yah, a bit, can fix one." I tried to be as calm as possible. Gave him the receipt. He took a look at it. The girls returned their bikes one by one.

"Okay," he waved us off.

We made our escape!

I half-expected all the shopkeepers to come running after us (brandishing pitchforks and knives), demanding some explanation, but nothing of the sort happened. A huge sigh of relief.

We bade goodbye and good luck to Idham who would continue the long arduous journey back to Pasir Ris where he came from. By now he was half-alive. Gabriel would take a straight bus home. As for the rest of us? A McDonald's breakfast!

It had been a night of highs (literally), and lows. We climbed Imbiah Hill, crossed treacherous bridges, tore down slopes at great speeds, and fixed the most unfixable of mishaps. Never mind! One learns from experience. We may've been caught unawares now, but we sure as hell will be ready in the future.

Next time, we shall come prepared!

38 KM!!

 

The Amazing Race! (ICT FOC Day 2; Part 2)

********************
MAY 17, 2005 AROUND 10 AM
Later on we gathered in the T19 Foyer (or Lobby, as some prefer to call it). We were instructed to form radiating lines around a yellow pillar. Then we were told to feel sleepy. All of us stood with eyes closed.


Suddenly someone whispered in my ear, "Psst! Open your eyes! Come!...Just follow!"
I was led all the way to FC6 on the 2nd floor, where I hid. It was fully lit, although there wasn't a soul there, save for the painters and cleaning uncle (who were all wondering what I was doing there.) I waited.
The cleaning uncle came and asked for one of the remaining brunch set meals. I assented to his request. The sight of me hiding in that corner evidently amused him.
Finally my team found me! We went back to the foyer to get our first Clue.
And so we went to the Moberly, untangled ourselves; to SP CARE, where we created a cheer even the Game Master forgot; to the Childcare Centre, where I was blindfolded to find something, and where the Clue led us outside campus (finally!). Something about an immobile Mercedes, we headed to Orchard towards its suspected location, courtesy of Timothy. The Race began, proper!


In the MRT train Mark did his sleeping thing again whilst standing holding onto a handgrip.
Nous arrivons! We discover that Cherokee is ahead of us by one road crossing.
We had to pass long pieces of food from mouth to mouth. Not for the more hygienic.
The Next Clue led us to the Orchard Geodesic Dome (it's *Not* a golf ball), and we used anything we had to knock down some stubborn drink cans. The Game Master didn't cover the gaps on the sides, though, so the Stray Items Collector was kept busy. I should have brought a longer umbrella, so I could hit more cans.
Then to Lucky Plaza, where we searched for people and blew up condoms. The general public was amused.
Our next stop was the Istana Park. Halfway along the journey there, we stopped to repose ourselves. Half of us went to an Old Chang Kee stall to eat, and the other half went to a nearby building's toilet. Some of us did both. (The building was the Heeren.)
Then Hi-5 passed us!
We quickly gathered ourselves, then ran like the wind to get ahead of them. Luckily our group could run for prolonged periods.
We managed to get ahead of them, separated only by a busy street. There were already some groups at the Istana Park pit stop. After performing our cheer, we had "ICT FOC 05/06" and our group name branded on our arms. Then one member went into the fountain pool to retrieve our next Clue.

To the Fort Gate! We brought the house down with our rendition of "She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain".

Then to Clarke Quay, where we wasted time counting windows. I don't understand why we had to do so; we could've just asked the receptionist inside that MICA building. We had to cross the road countless times counting the different coloured windows. The hidden ones tested our patience. If we wanted to see them, we had to cross to the diagonally opposite side of the nearby junction (marked in the illustration below by 'X'). But that junction only had one crossing--to the other side! The other three roads had no pedestrian crossing (typical of chaotic roads in the city.) We had to cross at another traffic light further down the road, once we crossed to the other side at the junction.

There was a traffic policeman controlling the junction at one point. During those times, whatever the policeman ordered, we did. Though the traffic lights seemed perfectly all right to me, we followed his instructions. I resisted the temptation to dash across the road even when the green man was visible, since the policeman knew better. Some tried to disobey him: a taxi nearly ran over him as he tried to halt traffic. Well, it *was* rush hour.
We had been there for an hour: from 6.30pm to 7.30pm. One hour counting windows! By then it was twilight. The Final Clue led us to the Esplanade. We were told that we were in 5th position, out of eight. It was a slightly comforting fact.
Unfortunately all of us agreed to walk there. That was because we didn't expect such a great discrepancy in location: the place *wasn't* the Esplanade, but 750 metres further than expected, and not even included in our Singapore Map and Transport Guide (inexistant location!)

By the time we got there, we were so tired we couldn't even give our cheer. Well, we didn't have to. Some time was given for rest. Then we did some silly charades game. Finally we were given another Final Clue: go back to the Polytechnic! Whichever team gets there first wins! (Of course some other team already got there first--we were in 5th place, remember?)
Thus we and some two other teams took the most direct form of transport to get back to SP: the bus 106, whose stop was conveniently nearby. We certainly didn't want to walk the 750 metres back to the nearest train station.
Blazerz, Fire, and the third group (certainly not Cherokee or Ozone) waited for bus 106. It duly arrived.
Our entrance was a sight to behold. Even the ez-link card readers were not ready, the bus having left the Marina Centre Bus Terminal just before this. Everyone wanted to get in. In the end there was standing room only. There were so many people, it seemed like we chartered the bus.
Members of the public who boarded the bus after that were equally surprised. Our profuse apologies to those who were looking forward to a nice good seat on the bus.
We arrived at SP, did our cheer, and were promptly crowned 5th (as expected).
End of the Race (How 'Amazing'!) at about 8.30 pm.
We showered and waited in our bunk for the next Event, the Shim Beauty Pageant. Whilst waiting, we played games and held amiable conversations within ourselves and several OC members and GLs.

********************

The Sleeping Prince (ICT FOC Day 2; Part 1)

********************
MAY 17, 2005 AT 8.30 AM
The second day began terribly. It was raining! We were allowed to wake up late, since we slept at 4.30am the night before. Some early risers had readied themselves, and some went to bathe, though the majority who woke up just in time for brunch didn't. Really, the irregular bathing hours! (Well at least we should have been told that there would be no bathing time given, so that we could awake and bathe earlier.) Our GLs told us to brush our teeth and freshen up instead, and report back to our bunk. We did so.
After performing the necessary ablutions, we went to the foodcourt for brunch (refer to Wednesday, June 8th 2011, for the full story.)
Then there was the spoiled handphone (refer also to Wednesday, June 8th 2011, for the full story.) Brunch finished and we waited for further instructions concerning The Amazing Race, a sort of obstacle race (the only amazing thing was the absence of a prize.)
After the episode of the spoiled handphone, there was Mark. A member of our group, he was known as the Sleeping Prince of our group, due to his strange way of catching up on lost sleep. He would close his eyes and nap in any kind of position he happened to be in. Currently he is sitting upright with arms crossed. Jia Xian took some pictures with his handphone. Someone remarked that a girl should kiss this Sleeping Prince and wake him up (which soon became a running joke.) The others giggled and had a look. When Mark was finally roused, he did not know that he was the centre of attention only some moments before! Absolutely Bizarre™!

********************

About the Terrible Food, and the Spoilt Handphone (ICT FOC Day 1; Part 1)

I began writing this in a book during the second day of the camp, the 17th of May 2005.

********************

MAY 17, 2005 AROUND 11AM

There shall be a little section in this Book written about Malaysian civil engineering. Quite atrocious stuff. Unfortunately, now it is time for brunch and I'm not in Malaysia. The section devoted to this subject will be kept for later. But it deserves an honourable mention. Now, I shall elaborate on the aforesaid brunch.

This brunch is just one of many meals served during the Freshman Orientation Camp of the Singapore Polytechnic Info-Communications and Technology Club I am currently attending. The absence of a proper breakfast was due to our unearthly sleeping hours the night before (which was due to the compound activities of a NightWalk (sort of) and a certain battle game.) Therefore, brunch.

As usual it is not good.

The food (if you could call it that) tastes like metal, plastic, and wood respectively. There are also strange shades of green in the vegetables. It is generally agreed that the food is tasteless. At least the breakfast is more decent, consisting of bread, jam and nyonya kaya.

However, the opposite could be said for drinks. The drink for breakfast is terrible, whilst the ones for lunch and dinner are good, though a bit bland (what do you expect? They made it themselves), and consisted of grape cordial or lime cordial.

The drink for breakfast was some substance made of Ovaltine, sugar, and warm water. It is an experiment not to be repeated.

Grape cordial wasn't so concentrated. It would take more than 1 bottle (which was what they used) to sweeten the amount of water in the drink canteen. Quite bland.

The lime cordial was much better. It was more concentrated than I expected for cordials sold in that kind of bottle.

On the first day of the camp we were told to create a name for our group. There were lots of proposals, but none sounded convincing. Our group was singularly silent, and names like Crystal Ballz and Bratz and 4u2c did not sound right. The other teams were buzzing with excitement, but ours followed the maxim of "I see you, you see me", to the extent that our Group Leaders pleaded us to speak.

Only a few of our members put forward names for consideration. We were reminded that the name chosen would be the one we were to use for the duration of the camp, and therefore must be concise and memorable. The other (newly-formed) teams had finished and were permitted to enter their bunks.

Finally it was just us.

*Other* Group Leaders (or GLs) noticed our plight and stationed themselves around us, giving encouragement.

Our GL, peculiarly nicknamed Bash, suggested Blazerz.

Blazerz it was.

Then came the part about the cheer. Our minds were completely drained. For lack of ideas, our *other* GL, Sonia, gave us a cheer, which we promptly accepted.

After clearing our bunks of the tables and chairs (it's actually a classroom), we went for lunch. Vegetarian. Out of the 50 sets, 40 were vegetarian! There was some error, so we ended up eating rice with vegetables.

There is a running joke amongst us, which began when one of our eight camping groups decided to call themselves Bull Shit. It was received with great amusement, and started off a great series of jokes. It is now presumably still in circulation. Even the seemingly serious Organizing Committee (OC) members could not stifle their laughter. Bull Shit also created an equally Bull-Shitting cheer (one of those jokes.)

Oh yes, during the aforesaid brunch, there was a Highly Singular Occurrence! It involved a spoilt handphone speaker. The phone was owned by Jia Xian, a member of our group. The problem was noticed in the morning, during which only the vibration alert was working but the ringtone was absent. Later on during brunch, someone suggested that he blow into the handphone, as if playing an instrument. Miraculously, it worked! He blew into the speaker itself, and the music started only when that happened. When he did not blow, it stopped. He proceeded to demonstrate the anomaly to the rest of the group.

Suggestions were then propounded. Some thought it was a neat trick; some thought he was operating the Pause button; but no, he was not. We were in amazement.

It may be that the speaker was compressed (in some way) and could not vibrate and produce sounds. Therefore, when air pressure was applied through blowing, the speaker was free to vibrate. It would not work if you press it with your fingers; then, the speaker would not vibrate.

He has yet to switch to another phone.

********************

WAWAS! - "Thank God We Are Safely in Singapore!"

--19 of 19--

We are now at Woodlands Checkpoint, Singapore, waiting in line for Customs checks. Due to the impossibly large size of my accordion bag, I cannot go through the self-service passport check line (it's more fun scanning your passport yourself, what with the thumbprints and gates).

Imagine my horror earlier when I got off the bus and saw my accordion bag deposited upside-down on the road beside the bus! It had fallen out of the luggage compartment when the uncle opened it, I gather. It was nobody's fault; the uncle was already on the other side when it fell, attending to the luggage compartments there (I suppose). I was the first person off the bus. No serious damage was done, just a dented grille, which would require some knocking inside with a hammer. What a souvenir to bring back home after 9 days in KL!

After heaving our bags through Customs, we go through the corridors to the taxi stand. Before that, we bade farewell to some of us who would follow the bus to Beach Road, going home by themselves.

There was a bunch of keys hanging from a road sign by the taxi stand. Whatever were they for? Hadis put forward a lot of absurd suggestions, the most implausible being that they were for some rich driver who owns all the cars parked on this road--just take one and go! We never knew the real explanation for them.

Soon, Aidil's parents came in a van, helping to send home those of us who lived near his area. Our props go into it as well. One by one we left, in our respective vehicles, until only a handful of us remained. My parents came, my accordion bag and luggage was somehow fitted into the boot of our car, and we said goodbyes to whoever was left of the SSP WAWAS! contingent waiting by the roadside. "Send our regards to your parents!"

And so we departed.

"Thank God we are back home!"

WAWAS! - "Tooooo the Lion City!" and Reminiscences

--18 of 19--

And now it was finally time to make our way to the bus stop and board our bus. Laden with our bags and our shopping, we crossed a bridge to the other side of the road where a simple bus was waiting. We had great expectations, but this would do. At least the bus had 3 seats per row, a benchmark of quality.

There were complications as to the arrangement of luggage in the bottom compartment, but we managed to settle it in good time. I sat in the second row along with Zalinah and Haddad. We bade goodbye to Encik Harun and Cikgu (she studies here) and the bus glided into traffic. We were on our way home!


I had time to scribble a few sentences in my black book until dusk set upon us, rendering me unable to see. We shared tidbits, drinks and even ice-cream!--from Zalinah, and we three in the second row passed it among ourselves, making sure the bus driver did not see, because as far as we knew, only mineral water was allowed in the bus. By tacit consent, it was made sure no one behind us saw either, else the ice-cream would finish in a blink.

Some two hours later we reached a resting point. Within it was a tidbit supermarket, filled to the brim with crackers, cuttlefish, fish snacks, drink, and sweets! Its sole purpose was to provide customers with tidbits, and tidbits only, so no detergent or diapers here. Most were sold in gigantic packs. No such thing as "take a little bit" here. You take all or you take none.

After toilet breaks, burgers, drinks and tidbits, we were off again.

I remember some of the things we did which I did not have space for in this chronicle. Call this an Appendix if you will!

Let's see what we have here. I recall with some amusement the "Thank God!" affair with Adillah, when she was spotted in her room speaking on the phone, with a photo of her boyfriend in front of her, on which was written the words "Thank God I found you!" She was playfully reminded of it to no end!

We had the rare opportunity of playing a gamelan set in the middle of our rehearsals, thanks to Encik Harun, who granted us permission to do so. It was located in the foyer of the Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka itself, right in front of the hall doors.

Then there was Jeff, who burst out into laughter in the middle of his prayers at a comment made by Didi. He recovered and resumed. Suddenly he dropped out of his prayers *again*! Seeing as we were watching a video of the second performance on Haddad's laptop, he simply could not concentrate on his prayers!

There were also spoonerisms reported, concerning Mai and Jad (short form for Jihad). They were mispronounced as Mad and Jai.

WAWAS! - Concerning Our Sleeping Habits

--16 of 19--

There is nothing much to say at this point. Once we were safely in our bunks we did the usual routine of either bathe/slack/or sleep, which we had been doing for the past seven nights. It was a completely open affair, everyone mingling about, an open-door policy. I made sure the mosquito coil, which was usually placed at the foot of my bed, was placed outside. Yesterday I had awoken with a tremendous cough in the middle of the night, and it was suspected that the smoke from the mosquito coil was the culprit. Hoping that tomorrow (our last day, our departure day!) would go well, I left my friends to their own devices and went to bed.

Dawn broke the next morning. A lot of us were firmly settled in our beds. Usual air of somnolence. Some of us were already up and running, most were still snoozing. Our sole agenda for the day was to go home, nothing else. We can do anything we want before that, but at 6.30pm, the bus leaves.

At this point I would like to bring to your attention the idiosyncrasies of our sleeping habits. During the night some days ago, we all could not sleep owing to the presence of Aizat's melodious snoring. Imagine our surprise when suddenly in the middle of this snoring came the mumbled words "air stewardess...". We greatly wonder what it was that made him say that! A very memorable dream, perhaps?

Shamil also. He was scratching up and down when suddenly he did the "pull to heart" action in our Intro. A novel way of rehearsing!

In waking up we also have our habits. Nizal, upon rousing him out of sleep, would start! Then he will slowly fall back to sleep. Wake him up a second time and he would start! again, then fall back to sleep. He is not one of those who are easy to awake, it seems.

Hadis is another matter altogether. He would wake up, look around with an extremely puffy face from sleep, then go back to sleep. Again he would awake, and look around sleepily. How would you know he was awake? Well, he would start to dance. (To the rousing music from Jihad's speakers.) Well *now* he's awake!

As for me, I have been sighted sleeping with my arms crossed in a professional manner. Very interesting!

WAWAS! - Concerning Afro Hair and Purple Corsets

--9 of 19--

The next day we woke up at 11am. We had intended to awake at 8am for a visit to Central Market (suggested by Cikgu) but none of us could wake up at that early hour so the visit to Central Market did not materialise. Instead we washed up, had brunch at Kancil Restaurant (where I was again mistaken for Hadis in my shades), and made our way to Stor Teater. Cikgu had already declared yesterday that there would be no rehearsal today, so hooray!--we lounged about and had little run-throughs of the Opening and Ending.




I remember one completely nonsensical occurrence some days before when we were making props. I was cutting some designs in styrofoam when suddenly a hideous mass of afro hair and purple corsets which turned out to be Nizal paraded onto the stage. It was a complete turn-off. He disappeared backstage and reappeared some moments later, a scarf wound around his huge afro in a feeble attempt as a tudung.

By then we were rolling about in laughter! It was an inside joke; it is rumoured that under Mai's tudung lies a full head of afro hair. If it were to be loosened--whoosh!--hair would burst out of every seam!

Needless to say, Mai was not amused.

La Veillée on Suria!

The title suggests the near impossible. But yes, I heard a Tiersen piece on Suria! This occurred on Thursday at about 8.25pm. The news program on Suria (called Berita) usually has a slot at the very end of their broadcast reserved for interesting events. Well, for Thursday, they screened a fashion show for the disabled. I thought it was interesting, of course, until I heard La Veillée. Then I was all ears.

It's quite interesting that they used La Veillée to accompany the catwalk ladies. Don't you have to get permissions for this sort of stuff? They were all on wheelchairs, and rolled around the spacious catwalk.

Yup.

The early morning meal I had at 5.25am just now was quite simple, owing to the fact that I had only a few minutes before we were recommended to stop eating. I bit into some bread, and consumed three dates. There was a cup of tea (now that goes well with bread and dates) and some cold water after we ran out of tea. That will do for today.

My brother didn't wake up at all; he slept like a log. By right we still can continue fasting if this happens, but fearing severe stomach cramps or something, my brother didn't fast today. He'd just finished his lunch.