I'm always on the lookout for clear-lens glasses or spectacles or sunglasses.
Because there're the contact lenses I wear, and when you're biking, having a tiny speck of dust in the eye can mean more than a visit to the optometrist. It can mean life and death. How do you pay attention when one eye is tearing irritably and you've got to maintain your balance and keep to your line and watch out for traffic and watch out for potholes and keep your legs moving all at the same time?
It's not like I've been cycling with my eyes exposed all this while. I've got a pair of sunglasses and I do have a pair of clear-lens glasses, but they're probably more for fashion and style than eye protection gear, so I'm always looking out for better- and more affordable- options.
This one time, I was in Daiso and as usual, wandering around, because that's what you do in Daiso, and then I found myself in the gardening section. It's a section that I don't usually go- I don't garden- so you can say it was more than a coincidence that I saw, hanging on a shelf, this pair of big pollen glasses. Neither can it be more than a coincidence that at once, I figured out that if they were compact enough to protect one from the tiniest pollen particles, they would be compact enough to protect one from the dust of the road.
So I bought them.
I've tried them, and they work.
They work well when you're biking on the road with all the cars zooming past you, throwing all kinds of stuff into your face with their tailwinds. They work well when you're perspiring with the exercise and your lashes end up trapping tiny, tiny, naked-to-the-visible eye particles of dirt.
They work well on a day like this when I've forgotten my eye drops because they're in my bike bag and my bike bag happens to be locked in a room and today I don't have the key. Because there's no use harping on what's there or not there. It's either you want to ride, or you don't. I do. So I get another messenger bag, throw the essentials inside, and off I go.
And of course, by the time we reached SMU, a mere 2 minutes away on bike, the rains came, and which we had to wait out, together with two visitors from Korea who were touring Downtown by rented bamboo bicycles and were also, like us, patiently waiting out the rain.
Because there're the contact lenses I wear, and when you're biking, having a tiny speck of dust in the eye can mean more than a visit to the optometrist. It can mean life and death. How do you pay attention when one eye is tearing irritably and you've got to maintain your balance and keep to your line and watch out for traffic and watch out for potholes and keep your legs moving all at the same time?
It's not like I've been cycling with my eyes exposed all this while. I've got a pair of sunglasses and I do have a pair of clear-lens glasses, but they're probably more for fashion and style than eye protection gear, so I'm always looking out for better- and more affordable- options.
This one time, I was in Daiso and as usual, wandering around, because that's what you do in Daiso, and then I found myself in the gardening section. It's a section that I don't usually go- I don't garden- so you can say it was more than a coincidence that I saw, hanging on a shelf, this pair of big pollen glasses. Neither can it be more than a coincidence that at once, I figured out that if they were compact enough to protect one from the tiniest pollen particles, they would be compact enough to protect one from the dust of the road.
So I bought them.
I've tried them, and they work.
They work well when you're biking on the road with all the cars zooming past you, throwing all kinds of stuff into your face with their tailwinds. They work well when you're perspiring with the exercise and your lashes end up trapping tiny, tiny, naked-to-the-visible eye particles of dirt.
They work well on a day like this when I've forgotten my eye drops because they're in my bike bag and my bike bag happens to be locked in a room and today I don't have the key. Because there's no use harping on what's there or not there. It's either you want to ride, or you don't. I do. So I get another messenger bag, throw the essentials inside, and off I go.
It was a good ride- despite the fact that it was a short one. We went towards the barrage, came out onto the Shoppes and turned into Raffles City. Storm clouds were hovering in the skies, but since the rains hadn't come down yet, we chose to push on.
And of course, by the time we reached SMU, a mere 2 minutes away on bike, the rains came, and which we had to wait out, together with two visitors from Korea who were touring Downtown by rented bamboo bicycles and were also, like us, patiently waiting out the rain.