That shaky feeling

This is an account of probably my first ever tremor experience complete with all the juddering and the shakes minus the bloodshed (thank god). I was conversing with my colleagues about the pros and cons of purchasing a low-rise residential unit as opposed to a high-rise when one of them suddenly became wide-eyed and gave me a bewildered look. I didn't really feel the first tremor then because I was not on my chair. You know... when you're standing, you tend to gesticulate and move around from side to side as you talk. Plus, the area of contact between the ground and you is the least when standing. The realisation that a tremor did struck us came in quite late for me. I remarked to my colleague that a large gathering of people was pooling outside Albert Complex along Bencoolen Street. At first, I mused that they could have been onlookers of a street accident or something like that.

Then, one other colleague from an office situated next door came over and told us to evacuate. That was when I realised that the crowd outside Albert Complex had not been an illegal one after all. And so my colleagues and I went, armed with our bags, out of Sim Lim Square and onto the street for safety. Outside on the street, one who would not have noticed an inkling that something had went wrong if he or she chose to ignore the noisy crowd that I mentioned earlier on. For a good twenty minutes everyone was talking and idling away and then someone proposed an impromptu company lunch! LOL...

As opposed to what one would expect in the aftermath of a tremor, we didn't opt for Alfresco dining. Instead everyone was happy with an early lunch at a food joint located within Sunshine Plaza serving wanton mee. It was great! looking back, it was really amazing that we managed to turn a panicky incident such as this to a nice and informal company function...