Viewing the Lyrids Meteor Shower

I had wanted to witness a meteor shower for the longest time. When Alicia asked which parts of Singapore was darkest in order to view this astronomical event, it piqued my interest. Gabriel mentioned in passing about how dark the open field near IKEA was, and we decided to view the Lyrids from that location.

6 of us gathered for dinner. It was a little awkward at first. We were Ingress players who were interested in viewing a meteor shower. There weren't a lot of topics to go round the dinner table. But, we made it through somehow. Being the klutz that I am, I broke a drinking glass by the serving counter. By the end of dinner, we were stuffed with lots of fried chicken wings and I was impressed with Nicole's desire to own an IKEA Family card.

After approximately a 20 minute stroll, we arrived at the open field. We laid out the mats atop the grass and tried to get comfortable. It was a going to be a long wait. But something amazing happened. Or rather, many amazing things happened. Nicole had this cool laser pointer that could illuminate the heavens. Cliff kept going on about the things he learnt in Astronomy class. I was trying to liven the atmosphere with random Japanese anime songs. It worked for the most part. We had scores from Final Fantasy X played, Yuko-san loved the OP from Rirouni Kenshin played from Wen Hao's phone. I think it was nostalgic for her. Wen Hao knew every Japanese song played. Nicole knew the rest. When I played the opening credits from Cardcaptor Sakura, Yi Hong was visibly in pain. Perhaps he was just tired because it was almost midnight, but I probably overdid the cuteness factor. He perked right back up when he played Macho Man and something from Queens. I was glad everyone was happy.

We didn't see a single meteor streak across the sky last night. But I had fun. Lots of fun. Jokes were made throughout the night. About glyphing the stars with that awesome laser pointer, about the incoming threat of Daarling, about Wen Hao standing up and letting it go in the wind. Yuko-san did long exposure shots of the Twin NEWater Towers. She commented afterwards that she felt close to nature and almost fell asleep looking at the stars. It felt like a safe environment to do just about anything. A small group of friends who were friendly, uninhibited and cheerful. I need to do this again soon.