Vertigo

Vertigo, or dizziness, is a symptom, not a disease (I stress). The term vertigo refers to the sensation of spinning or whirling that occurs as a result of a disturbance in balance (equilibrium). It also may be used to describe feelings of dizziness, lightheadedness, faintness, and unsteadiness. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US, about 40% of people in the United States experience feeling dizzy at least once during their lifetime. Prevalence is slightly higher in women and increases with age.

Vertigo is what I am experienced tonight at the Singapore Flyer. I am not a woman so I can only guess it is due to my age. Lao liao.

Eve and I have been looking forward to this evening of fun - essentially a day out for us and Faith on a weekday on the Singapore Flyer. I came home earlier today - at around 5:15pm and by 6, we were all set to go, with Faith's food and all in tow.

The trip was a little eventful to say the least.

First, it was pouring when we reached the car park of the Singapore flyer. All the time, we were keeping our fingers crossed that we would get to see the magnificient skyline of Singapore in spite of the drab weather.

While we were keeping our fingers crossed, our little girl answered our prayers by deciding to wet her pants. So we spent sometime changing her in the car and lo and behold, by the time we changed her, the sky had cleared. So it looked promising definitely - this trip on the Singapore Flyer.

We happily strolled her into the Singapore Flyer and asked if there were places we could feed Faith before we went up to the Flyer. Our tickets were for 7pm and we were told to be there by 6:30pm, so we had arrived there earlier to feed Faith. There was a nice usherer who showed us to the reception (whereupon she found to her dismay, there were no seats - well, at least she had the kind intention), and then to Popeye restaurant. We promptly settled down to feed Faith, but not before the usherer gave us a useful tip - it did not matter that our tickets said 7pm - we could take any "flight" we wanted, so we didn't have to rush. That was great news.

But being the clever consultant I was, I had asked the usherer - then would it mean that we would wait for half an hour to catch the next "flight"? After all, one trip was half an hour. To this, my dear wife looked at me with dismay. It's like a ferris wheel - the wheel doesn't stop - you just hop on when the bubble comes past you - if not the wheel would have to stop each time it picked up passengers, silly. Ah, so. Let me remind everyone I have a Stanford Computer Science degree and an INSEAD MBA and blah blah blah. To save me from embarrasment, the usherer had tactfully kept her mouth shut.

By the time we finished feeding Faith, the rain had pretty much stopped. This was great news. And we happily packed our stuffs and went up to the ride. But first, we had to check-in our pram -no prams aboard. (I kept using the word trolley, but Eve kept correcting me - it is pram. Again, I remind you that I am from Stanford). You could tell this was a new establishment, because the usherer very happily ran to us and gave us a check-in chit for our pram (see I learn fast). She had taken this chit from this table where all the thick wad of chits were lying. I could tell immediately that they rarely issues such chits. Trial-runs. I could imagine this usherer doing next-morning reporting "I issued No 7 chit to a couple by asking the guy his name, writing down his mobile number and then tagging his pram (not trolley). Very smooth - no operational issues. No need to streamline further".

After we cleared "customs", we promptly walked up a ramp and was ushered into an express queue. We sped past some baffled onlookers who seemed to be waiting at some other queue and we were wondering why we had this special treatment - perhaps due to Faith in tow.

Anyway, it was all quite quick - before you know it, we were ushered into an oncoming capsule with two other couples - both younger than us. They were quite lovey-dovey and as an "elderly couple", we felt it our entitlement to ask one of them to take pictures for us. Err, can you take pictures for us. And the guy was just getting into the mood. Alamak he must have thought. But in all sportsmanship, I had offered to take their pictures as well. The couple nicely refused and went on to take their own pictures with outstretched camera...

The trip started quite nicely, and as the capsule was rising, I had looked out the capsule and looked at the view. Quite nice. A bit blocked by the remnants of rain outside the capsule, but nonetheless quite nice. The nice thing about this timing was that we had the chance to see the day and night view. At this moment, I was carrying Faith and she was a little bit her usual self wanting to crawl on the floor etc. I decided to keep her occupied while Eve busied herself with the photo-taking. It must have been only five minutes, when I looked up from holding Faith, that I realised...hmm, quite high ah. I think at that point I had thought - better stay where the benches are and not venture too far. Vertigo sinking, sigh.

What made the trip more uneventful was that halfway up, Faith decided to poop. So essentially, we were in this air-tight container so many feet above ground with two other couples who were probably hoping to smell more love than poop. Oh well, c'est la vie. Eve and I decided in our good sense to not change her in the capsule. See, we're so considerate.

Anyway, half an hour later, the trip ended. I was a bit woozy when I came out - not the spinning kind of woozy, but the kind of feeling you get when you know you are not completely normal - a little out of sorts. But it was fine. The attraction had a $15 picture of us, taken when we were at the entrance, which we promptly rejected - a bit touristy for us.

My verdict: Was really glad that we had the chance to go up the Flyer and experience this for ourselves. Glad we're doing this in Singapore first and not London - supporting our local attraction. Will we go again? Err..probably not too soon. I think a break for now will be in order given that I'd be going up a helicopter during my reservist in two weeks time.