Singapore has been our base and home in SouthEast Asia. In total, we are spending a month here with our friends Bernie and Pearl. Really, the boys favorite thing to do here is to chill out in the house and play Mindcraft. But hey, they can do that anywhere, so we are constantly pushing them to ‘get off the screens’ and go out and do things. A trip to an air conditioned movie theater easily motivates them. We have seen Iron Man 3 and The Croods with them. This is a real treat for the boys, as we have not gone to see hardly any movies in theaters on this trip. But there you go again, something that we can do at home. Not really special to Singapore.

Ski360, I would say, fits the bill as an activity that is especially Singaporean. It is modern, water-based, and athletic; a venue that is our boys favorite place in Singapore. Ski360 is a cable tow wake boarding venue. The cable runs above a huge salt water lagoon that is dotted with skate park style ramps and jumps. Maybe 6 people can be out wake boarding at the same time. It is the size of two football fields. Fall on the far side of the lagoon and you have a long walk back to the starting point. There is a launch ramp that everyone takes off from. Music is blasting from the sound system. Young people with blond dyed hair and ear lobe plugs fit you with the gear.

Ski360 is located in East Coast Park. A wide promenade separates the lagoon from the ocean where hundreds of cargo ships are anchored, waiting their turn at the container port a few miles to the west. Just beyond the far end of the lagoon is the East Coast Lagoon Food Village.

Our first visit to Ski360 was on a Friday evening. Jordan, Justin, Izzy and I all went wake boarding. Jordan and Justin have had one chance previously to wake board at Lake of the Pines prior to this. Neither could get up. I wondered how this was going to turn out for them. We all started on Easy Up boards, which have a high foam content and thus are more buoyant than  regular wake boards. I got up on my second try. The tow rope gives quite a sudden jerk when it engages with the tow cable. It took Jordan maybe 10 dogged attempts, but he finally got out on the water. Justin never did get up, but he did not consider this a negative in any way. He would pop his face up and and with a big smile immediately start talking about what just happened as he paddled the twenty feet back to the ramp. He never got tired of crashing. It was the ‘best time’ according to him. Jordan meanwhile was trying to make 5 loops around the lagoon, which was not easy. In addition to us simply being very unsteady on the boards, there were 5 turns to the cable circuit that really whipped you, and often at these junctures we novices were most likely to fall. The boys boarded for two hours, past sunset.

When we were done, we all went to the ECL Food Village for a hawker meal dinner. The evening was pleasant and the place was packed. We ate a smorgasbord of chicken satays, grilled stingray, wok fried noodles, beef rib soup, and chicken rice.

The next Friday found us visiting Ski360 again. The boys had been asking for it all week. This visit Jordan upgraded to a regular, finned wake board. Over the 2 hours he logged lap after lap on the lagoon. Justin never did make it up, but that did not matter. He found a New Zealand expat 9 year old boy who was having similar difficulties with the wakeboard. They traded their wake boards in for a knee board and got out on the lagoon as a tandem. They never made it around the first turn, and always had a long walk back, but they really didn’t care. They enjoyed wiping out.

When we get back home, I know we will be spending time at Gigi’s family house in Lake of the Pines. The boys will be knocking on the neighbor’s door, asking Paul if he wants to take his boat out on the lake so the boys can go wake boarding.