Rant: SG50 experience

Usually for National Day, we would spend the evening having a nice meal at someone's house and enjoying the parade from the comfort of an air-conditioned living room. This year, being the nation's golden jubilee and all, we decided to do something different and pretty unique. Because who doesn't get excited over the promise of extra grand fireworks? For the best views, one would think of camping out at the tallest hotels, but that would cost a bomb. And rubbing sweaty arms with thousands of other people? No thanks.

The genius idea was to boat out to the Marina Bay area and enjoy the spectacular lightshow from there. Not many other people would be able to say they viewed the fireworks from sea, where you get a panoramic view of all the fireworks. Except, it's on a boat.

It's only a problem if you don't have sealegs - and I have none. Just 5 minutes reading a book or my phone in a moving vehicle and I'm almost puking. I seriously have no idea why I agreed to this. Perhaps it was in the naive hope that the waters would be still and the sea breeze adequate to calm my vestibular system.

E1 does look a lil sickish doesn't he

In all honesty, the first hour or so was fine. Even without the antiemetics, which I couldn't take because I am still breastfeeding, the forward surging of the boat was tolerable. Then once we anchored, the constant vertical oscillations, punctuated by rocking waves in the wake of other boats, made me empty out my Gong Cha lemon juice with white pearl and a half bag of ginger candy.

By 7pm, I was totally incapacitated.

I had already relinquished E2 and the sling to GY, who dutifully fed both boys their dinner, while I waited out the next hour down in the bunks. Fortunately, they seemed to have already grown their own little sealegs and was spared the misery of their landlubber mummy. Before I went down, I did manage to catch the awesome aerobatic displays, which all the boys enjoyed.

Admittedly, the view was great

SIL2 was the only other casualty, since she is also still breastfeeding. SIL1 was blessed enough to have taken the anti-motion sickness pill and seemed to have enjoyed herself. MIL, despite claiming that she doesn't do so well on boats, appeared to be thoroughly loving the experience, tossing out expired food and making Sports Illustrated poses on deck with the sea spraying her hair and dress. The husbands were totally in their element, lead by Captain FIL who expertly commandeered our little vessel through and around all the nautical traffic.

So after sleeping off (or trying to, for the most part) that hour preceding the whole point of the trip, I got up just in time to witness the first few displays - and promptly regurgitated the rest of my gastric contents.

Then came 8.15pm and I managed to stay lucid enough to enjoy the mesmerising SG50 fireworks:

Verdict: No regrets, but never, ever, ever again

It's 11pm. The kids have KO-ed, I'm starving, and I'm still experiencing residual vertigo. This is worse than the time I downed seven tequilas and two 151 shots during our wild party days. I'd have to rethink that cruise vacation I had been considering for a long time. And next time I want to see fireworks, I'll just book myself into that nice tall hotel and treat myself.

Oh, and Happy Birthday, Singapore.