As much as I'm a soul who loves cool, grey skies and bracing, chilly winds, I have to say that the light near the Coast on this particular afternoon was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen.
It was a light that reminded me of Los Angeles.
It was a light that reminded me of San Francisco.
It was a light that I knew I'd seen in places where the oceans meet.
People often assume that we're like Maldives or the Virgin Islands or Fiji. They assume that we have nice sandy beaches, waving coconut trees and clear blue skies.
But we don't.
Well, we do have the sandy beaches and the coconut trees, but we certainly are a land of skyscrapers, steel and glass, and we do not walk around in sundresses, sandals and sun-kissed hair.
That being said, we do tend to spend our days in flip flops and shorts when we're not clad in shirts, jackets, heels, shoes and ties.
Yet, we are a land of tropical skies.
Make no doubt about that.
But unlike those places where their skies are blue and their seas are also blue, our humidity often grants us a scenery of sky that can range from the overcast white to the overcast grey to the pale blue to the bluest of blue.
You never know how the day will bring.
The morning might start out as humid and overcast, but the afternoon might bring about clear blue skies. On the other hand, we might have a morning of clear blue skies followed by sheets of rain in the afternoon right after.
So a blessing it was that the skies on this afternoon where I cycled from East Coast Park to Changi Village were of the bluest of the blue.
It didn't matter that the time was then two o' clock in the afternoon.
It didn't matter that I would come back from the ride looking tanned in places here and there.
It didn't matter that the heat might make the ride a very puffy, red-faced, sweating-buckets one.
I was happy to be out on Daffy under a light so clear, sharp and bright.
You see, there's something about such a light that makes everything look gloriously beautiful.
And the curious thing is that you won't notice it until you're there.
You can be happily making you way along, and then all of a sudden, you find yourself starting to take notice of the trees along the path, you start to admire the artistic shadows their canopies throw upon the ground, and you start to realize just how bright and pure and clear and green the leaves on their branches are.
I cannot tell how many times I wanted to stop and take pictures of the scenery all around me.
I cannot tell you how amazed I was at the 'summer-forever' sight of Changi Coastal Park in the late afternoon light.
And even though I knew it would be another twenty plus kilometer ride back from this side (in the hot sun!), the quiet of this place, the presence of the lovely blue sea, the existence of these majestically waving trees, and the beauty of all this green made this ride very, very worthwhile.