Record Time

I made it home from camp in record time yesterday. First up - the 154 reached the bus stop at approximately 3:45 pm. Normally this bus, which caters to a lot of students in uniform, stops at almost every stop along Dunearn Road. Not so yesterday, at the time I went back. Whizzing past the bus stops felt quite fun. Except that I had a throbbing headache and spent most of the journey with my head pressed against the window. Not so much enjoyment there.

I reached the bus stop at Trellis Towers. The moment I got off, I saw a 506 reach. I debated for about, well, 2 seconds over whether to wait a while more or just pay an extra dollar for the express bus. I quickly jumped onto the 506 after the brief moment of deliberation. And it was a good decision. It almost never stopped, due to hard-up people who are not like me and didn't want to fork out. So, yeah, I suppose. I even amazed myself when I reached the front of my house after walking back from the bus stop at 4:45 pm. Not bad time, and less standing than the MRT. So chalk one up for the bus.

The Green Line Again

A shocking thing happened at Clementi station on Friday morning. A train pulled into the station and I could not get on because it was really full. Like no space to even breathe full. The next train arrived about 2 minutes later, which was good, but it was just like the other one. Which was bad. I managed to squeeze my way on and endured the squishiness. It lasted only about till City Hall station, where all the passengers seemed to suddenly disappear. Me and a friend then managed to get seats. It got better after Lavender, where there was so much room on the train you could lie down on the row of seats and not get into anyone's way. A certain acquaintance who was traveling on the way with us (let's call him K, shall we) declined to take a seat even though it was this empty. Instead of treasuring a moment where he could actually sit on the MRT (which is getting rarer and rarer) he chose to stand all the way back to the East. And I can't really figure out why. Anyways, I wonder if it's a waste to send all these empty trains all the way to Pasir Ris. It seems a bit wasteful to me. Oh wait, on the other hand, then what will bring all the disgruntled commuters from the East towards the town area if all the trains don't go back. Never mind; I just answered my own question.

254 - Observation

Anyways, on Tuesday, I had nothing to do (which, nowadays, is typical of any day.) So I decided to watch the 254 buses as they barreled past me along Pioneer Road. I took note of their timing and decided to look up the timetable on the SBS website. Unsurprisingly, especially with the erratic (as seen below) waiting times on this service (for the 2 hours I observed, anyways). Anyways, the times are below. (Waiting times in brackets)

• 13:57
• 14:12 (15 m)
• 14:31 (19m)
• 14:48 (17m)
• 15:05 (17m)
• 15:20 (15m)
• 15:26 (6m)
• 15:34 (8m)
• 15:44 (10m)
• 15:48 (4m)

The average waiting time is 12.33 minutes. But between 14:00 and 15:00, the waiting time is on average 17 minutes. For 15:00 to 16:00, it was 8.6 minutes only. I have no idea what caused this random change in frequency. Oh yeah, on the SBS website, it says that between 08:31 and 16:59, the frequency is between 6 and 17 minutes. One of the waiting times falls higher than this (between 14:12 and 14:31) but amazingly there is also one that falls lower than this range (15:44 to 15:48). Now that is really mind-boggling. I don't know what to expect from this anymore.

95 / 100

Why does the service 95 have so many sub-services? (The pic above shows a 95B and a 95D service; presumably there must be a 95A and 95C as well.) I was trying to figure out that question on a recent trip to NUS. On the way there, me and a friend stopped at Clementi station, and got onto a cab. We asked the driver to take us to our destination, University Hall. He had no idea where it was, and he freely admitted it. When we reached the area, he saw a sign pointing out "University Hall". He followed the sign and dropped us at this modern looking building. Only after we checked it out did we realise it wasn't University Hall; instead it was some music conservatory. In the end we had to take a NUS shuttle bus to reach the place. (At least on the map the NUS bus services are marked clearly.)(Oh yeah, and from what I heard from another friend, who is currently studying at NUS, no cabbie knows where anything is there. The first time he went there, a taxi driver took him in circles around the campus before he finally asked to be let off.) And on the way out, I took the 95 out of there towards Buona Vista MRT. Luckily that day all the buses were 95 standard. I would be flummoxed if I had to decipher where all the different 95s were going.

And in the afternoon I had lunch at Golden Mile. (The Thai beef noodles are nice. Yes, I went there for food, not for the giant dried water beetles or whatever else is there.) And I took the 100 bus to Aljunied to swap for the 67 to go home. It was okay, but passing through Geylang would not be my preference. It was like only 2, why are all these you-know-whos out so early?