Sunday 28 March 2010

First time Kite-flying experience

We made use of the previous post's directions to get to the bus-stop. To be exact, we didn't get to that bus-stop. We walked what seemed to be more than 5 minutes to reach a bus-stop full of Mainland Chinese and Bangladeshi foreign workers. We missed the shuttle bus and bus no. 400 and waited for at least 15 minutes before a cab came along. There was alot of dust as lots of constructions were going on around Marina Bay MRT station.

As we discovered when we were on the cab, the bus-stop shown in the directions provided in pictorial form was one stop down the one we waited at, which means we would have to walk a further distance to get to the supposedly designated bus-stop.

By the time we reached Marina Barrage, it was about 7.30pm.
Many kites were in the dusky sky. A beautiful sight

She bought an $11 'mini kite' and $2 string 'for mini kites'
We bought the smallest (and cheapest) kite possible at this shop (in case we couldn't get it up into the sky, I wouldn't feel the pinch).

The cashier helped to tie the string to the kite. We tried for what seemed like an hour to get the kite up the sky

Unfortunately, our thrill and happiness was short-lived as our kite became entangled with two other kites and had to be brought down to disentangle the strings. Our string had to be cut short to free other kites from ours.

We tried for another what seemed like an eternity to get the kite up again.


Coco feeling easy-peasy flying the kite
An expanse of grass for a baby stroll

We left at about 9.30pm. We were racking our brains on how to get home, as the place was quite remote, when we bumped into my youngest sister and her fiance!

This was probably the 2nd or 3rd time we ran into them and getting a lift home. What a coincidence!

The trip left me thinking perhaps we might have fared better with a larger kite. From what we saw, it seemed to us that larger kites take to the wind easier than smaller kites. We also needed to release the string quickly the moment the kite rode on the wind.

It was very dark on the grass rooftop as there was no lights. Only soft, dim lights were available along the sidewalk around the huge grasspatch. You wouldn't be able to identify your friends even if they were right in front of you. Sometimes, the kite strings were across the grasspatch, just above it at your face, body or calf level. It can be a hazard for people walking on the grass. It might have been perfect for a kite-flying night against a backdrop of city skyscrapers if there were lights around.

It was a frustrating experience to take photographs even with a D90. Coupled with only a kit lens, I was not able to capture any decent pictures with it. It was all black when I tried capturing images of the abundance of kites in the sky. And if I ever managed to get any picture, it would be blurred due to the low light.

I'll leave photography to the next Barrage trip - in the daytime definitely!

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