Yesterday was Sunday and MsI asked all day to go an a cable car ride. MsC ended up going over to play at a friend's house, so I took the Littles for that cable car ride before dinner.

We took the "Black" Line over to Sentosa Island and then walked down got on the "Rainbow" Line (as MsI calls it), to get a full view of the Island and the Beaches.  I was planning to keep us in the cable car and just do the full circular loop back to where we started, but once MsE saw the beach she really wanted to get a sea shell. I told the girls we would just have a tiny walk out on the beach toward the water to see if we could find a shell and then we would go right back home without going in the water.

Down at the beach we were met with rows and rows of crowd control railings and discovered that they are now doing Safe Entry even for the Public Beach. You need to scan in with your Government ID. We walked down the beach assuming that there would be an entrance to scan in soon. Eventually, we found the entrance and got in line. But the line didn't move - AT ALL. After 10 minutes one of the employees walked down to check everyone was following social distancing rules and I asked how long she thought the wait would be. She told us it would be an hour to get on the beach from where we were. AN HOUR!!!

Yeah, so we left.  

I've never stood longer than 5 minutes in any line in Singapore since Lockdown lifted and those lines were to get into enclosed, condensed, thoroughly crowded place places (like inside a Mall, a Museum, a Restaurant).

The beach line wasn't very long, maybe 20 people ahead of us. Turns out that you can now make a reservation to get on the beach (up to one week in advance) and then you don't have to wait in line.

But what was infuriating was that the beach was empty. It was very empty. Sentosa has mapped out socially distanced squares on the beach to put your picnic blanket down and so most of these were empty. And, then in addition there were just huge empty spaces where there was no one at all. For context, we have almost no community cases in Singapore currently.

Actually, not only was the beach empty, but all the public spaces along the road beside the beach fence were crowded. So everyone who couldn't get on the beach had just sat down on the lawn to have their picnic all nice and close together, or they had decided to walk along the road and at least enjoy the view of the beach through the fence.

I apologized to the girls as we walked back for not knowing about this. MsE really wanted a shell, so we browsed the very tiny edge of sand where the fence was until we unearth a few rocks and shells.  

So I've decided, I'm not crazy!

It really is as hard to go "do" anything in Singapore right now, as I've been feeling it is. Maybe now I can stop feeling guilty for staying close to home and not doing many outings or as much sightseeing as I'd like to. Probably not though, I'll just feel bad that I'm not a better "planner."