So you think you can fly kites?

Image courtesy: (the photographer)

October 2^nd 2010, yet another birthday anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, marked the beginning of a week long of recess break for me, for this Fall semester. And in what better way could I begin the celebrations than by doing something Singaporeans love to do as a hobby in their spare time: flying kites!

One of the SMU student organization known as SMU Icon (International CONnections) organized a kite flying event at place by the sea known as Marina Barrage for all international students interested in the same. Although I must admit now that I have never flown kites or even held the reel for anyone, I signed up for the event because I simply had nothing better to do on this Saturday evening (the alternative was involving myself in a Java pair programming session – uh.. no!). I reached 15 minutes late (also known by most as “on time”), saw only “Asian” faces all around, signed up, boarded the bus, and got to this gorgeous place where we were to fly kites.

The first 45 minutes were spent making our own kites (what?! the email said we were all going to get one free kite! I assumed it was going to be ready-made!). This was a lot of fun though! And in no time were we all finding best windy spots to fly, just the way desperate-for-internet people locate Wi-Fi hotspots. I struggled for at least 1 hour, with interruptions from the smell of free snacks which were being served less than 20m away, to merely have the kite launched in the sky. I am sure FAIL BLOG folks would have loved to capture those moments. The other Singaporeans insisted we change the spot, and we all relocated to a breezier spot.

Let me skip all the new struggles faced here or how I was awed by the winds and all that. In less than 20 minutes, I had my what-seemed-like-a-one-dollar-kite fly so high, that my thread reel ran out. The organizer noticed this and declared me winner to the competition instantaneously. Am I proud or what?!