Wan's Ubin Journal

Hi All, This post will be touching on my transition from being a full-time National Serviceman into the civilian life once more and how my time in National Service (NS) had played an important role in my Ubin journey, from the quest to find my late grandparents' house to restoring and revitalising our Ubin kampongs and history. On January 9th, 2019, I have reached a milestone that has been shared by every single Singaporean son. I have ORD-ed. National Service, as cliche as it sounds by now, is the rite of passage where a boy becomes a man so I guess I can say that I am finally a man, hehe. But there is a significant meaning behind this overused yet underrated statement and here are three things that I have come to terms with: 1. Initiative In NS, we are taught to take initiative in the things that we do. To get things rolling; for us to get straight into the action, we need to be the ones who take charge of what we want to achieve. We can't always wait for...

Hi All! Ubin Also Instagrammable makes a come back again! Here are this week's features and I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I did! -- TYRONNE TOH @tj3t__ "side-eyeing 2019... thanks for the day out pals :""" -- POOTIE TANG @zabri_05 "Quick wash" -- FREYA SWALLOW @sportyfreya "Our trip to pulau ubin!!!" -- Thank you all for spending time on Pulau Ubin together with your friends, family and loved ones and I hope that you may come back soon to share more precious memories and stories with everyone! Want to get your photos featured in this blog? I'd love to show them! Simply #wansubinjournal onto your photos and you might stand a chance to have it featured in this blog. It's my way of saying thank you for remembering and visiting Pulau Ubin and of course, leaving behind memories and stories for others to appreciate and love the beauty of the boomerang-shaped ...

Hi All! In this post, I will be sharing with all of you my message for the new year where I would touch on my hopes,  dreams and mission for my late grandparents' island home in 2019. 2018 is now behind us and we are now entering into 2019 with new hopes, dreams and resolutions. However, one might often hear that even as we progress into the new year, there is one place in Singapore that still appears to be stuck in time. Pulau Ubin to many, is seen as a time capsule where we get to experience the time when Singapore was transitioning from self-governance and into independence. With the existing kampong houses, plantations and farms, one might simply believe a statement that claims that this was how Pulau Ubin had been since the 1960s, but I'm afraid it is not an accurate a statement as we hoped it to be. My mom who had spent nearly more than thirty years on Ubin, having been born there in 1959 before moving to mainland Singapore in 1989, had witnessed the hustle an...

Hi All! Before you even know it, we have come to the final days of 2018. For some of us, we would take this time to quickly scramble through our bucket list of new year's resolutions, while some might just even bring some of those resolutions on to the next year; just like how it had been brought forward since maybe 2010, hehe. Anyway, for most of us we would take this time to remember what we have done over the past year and here on Wan's Ubin Journal, I would like to dedicate this post to take a look back on the highlights that made 2018 a wonderful year for WUJ! My First Trip In Years 17 Mar The day that might have been fated for me. After so many years of not coming back to explore Pulau Ubin, that wish finally came true on March 17th, 2018. We had a mini cohesion within my brigade colleagues, sort of a getaway from the chaos of our office work and life - but little did I know that a desire to find something more was sparked from this very day. You...

Hi All! It's been a long time coming since I wrote my next post but I am happy to finally find the time. As of now my wifi at home is still not working, so I figured that I will just blog again while using my phone. It's tedious but it's best to really share my thoughts as fresh as it gets! Christmas is just around the corner and on Saturday, December 22nd 2018, I was invited by my friends from Faith Community Baptist Church (Marine Parade) and members of the Singapore Boys' Brigade 86th Coy to head down together with them to Pulau Ubin for a Christmas celebration. If you've heard about the FCBC and BB before, that's mainly because I've been with them for a few events held on Ubin as well. You may read up on my adventures with these awesome people here . I was completely excited when I heard about this because I had never actually been invited to a Christmas party; what more than one on Ubin! So I eagerly awaited for the day to come as I cleared ...