Phew ! I am so glad to be back here again! What a long day it has been! Till now I can still feel my heart pounding furiously in my ribcage. That was what the aftermath of the entire traumatic experience I had done to me.

You might have seen me or at least saw my shadow on the front page of the newspaper! Does that make me a star you think. But your absolutely WRONG ! Oh yes , why would I talk about these two seemingly irrelevant things? That was because i was trapped in the tallest ferris wheel in the whole world!

It all started with us going to the Singapore Flyer half an hour earlier as we were all so excited to be forty-two stories high and to be able to see the whole skyline of Singapore. As i seldom go out this was one eye-popping experience.

As we still had time , we were discussing about what we would do once our capsule reached the highest point of the Flyer's revolution. I was wondering if we could see Indonesia from there. My sister was whining about why we should eat at the Popeye's there. But as fate would have it , we did not as my parents were worried that we would not be in time to make the flight.

Unfortunately , fate had other plans for us. So instead of enjoying the tender and crispy fried chicken , we boarded the capsule and my feet never got to touch the good solid land for a good six hours. We were at the pinnacle of the Singapore Flyer when its axis suddenly stopped rotating. At first , I was ignorant of what was really happening so I felt lucky as i could spend extra time on the wonderful Singapore Flyer while everyone else could not.

But as time passed by , i realised that we had been stationary for a tad too long ! I was getting tired of trying to see Indonesia and i realised that the sun was setting and the air in the capsule was getting stuffy. I don't think that we were supposed to be on the Flyer for such a long time! Something was not right! (Yes i'm slow and i admit it)

Just then , everything became clear to me. There were crying infants , anxious parents and frustrated teenagers . I could even see a crowd of people around the intercom, jabbing the call button and repeatedly asking for explanations, anything that could make them feel more assured about their situation. But there was nothing. Nothing to make us all feel better. The reality of it all suddenly hit me. I was trapped. In a small space, with no guarantee as to when i could even return home. Helplessness gradually filled me, together with dread and anxiety. Comfort had never seemed so near, and yet was so far away.

Seconds seemed like minutes, and minutes seemed like hours. But after a while, there seemed to be some sort of a commotion within the capsule and i could feel a change in the buzzing of voices. Not pessimism, but hope. Help had arrived! Our saviours slowly lowered the old and the young using harnesses out of the capsule, then it was my turn. It was a rather crude way of escaping our plight. (But hey, at least it was better than nothing, right?)

As I slowly descended, blasts of cold air stung my face, but strangely enough, i welcomed it. It meant freedom.To an abseiling enthusiast, that might have been an exhirating experience, but i hardly remembered it. All i can dredge up from my vague memory of this was that I landed, some people took my harness off, and i waited for the rest of my family, hugging them tightly when we all touched ground safely. It might not have been life-threatening, but staying at a particular spot for almost 6 hours was no joke.( I almost peed my pants out!) Back to the topic, though we emerged from the experience slightly shaken (not stirred), but it gave me a new perspective on life and family, and what mattered most in life.

A few days later, when i found out a tiny electrical fire caused the flyer to break down, leaving us stranded, i was furious. But when i thought more about it, i decided to forgive and forget, because life was not about bearing grudges and moving on from bad times.

On hindsight, this was a rather unusual day, no?