At the entrance of the MRT station, every one of us were required to scan our access card before we could enter. However, when I tried to scan my access card, for some reason it failed. I retried several times, but it still did not work. Therefore, I could not go through the entrance. At that time, I noticed that my friends had already went through the entrance and they were walking quite quickly because a MRT just arrived at that time.
Afraid of being left behind, I called out to my friends. However, instead of calling their names, I called 'Hello!'. As a result, my friends did not hear that and did not know I was left behind. I saw them walking down to the lower floor where the platform was located. I then walked to a nearby counter to ask for help. They did something to my access card and returned it to me. I was then able to scan the card successfully and go through the entrance.
I quickly walked to the platform at the lower floor. However, when I reached the platform, my friends were no longer there and the MRT had just left. At that point, I realised that I was lost. I panicked for a short while, but I then realised that all I had to do was just to get to the Chinatown MRT station. However, there were 2 MRT at that platform, both heading towards different directions and I wasn't sure which one my friends took to get to Chinatown.
I looked around for the full MRT map, but it was nowhere to be seen. Then, I walked back to the upper floor and found the map right next to the escalator. Looking at the map, I realised that there was no direct route to Chinatown from Raffles Place. I had to interchange either at Dhoby Ghaut or Outram Park station. It took me quite some time to find the map and figure out the route that I should use.
I chose to take the North South Line (red) from Raffles Place to Dhoby Ghaut, interchange at Dhoby Ghaut, then take the North East Line (purple) to Chinatown. I then went back down to the platform. I had to wait for a few minutes for the next MRT to arrive. Then, when I was at the Dhoby Ghaut MRT station, one of my friend telephoned me and asked me where I was. I told her where I was and that I knew how to get back to Chinatown.
There, it again took me some time to get to the platform for North East Line because the signboards were a bit confusing. When I was taking the MRT from Dhoby Ghaut to Chinatown, after Clarke Quay station and just before arriving at Chinatown, I suddenly noticed that my 2 friends who went to buy souvenirs earlier were in the same MRT and they also saw me. They were surprised to see me because they didn't know that I was left behind.
We then got down together at Chinatown station. All my other friends were waiting for me at Chinatown station and they saw me as soon as I got down the MRT. They had been waiting for me for some time. They asked me where did I go to and I told them everything that happened. Some of them were very worried about me while some were confident that I am smart enough to know how to get back to Chinatown.
My friends told me that they used a different route back to Chinatown. They took the East West Line (green) to Outram Park, interchanged at Outram Park, then took the North East Line (purple) to Chinatown. As for the 2 friends that I met in the MRT, they actually boarded the MRT at Clarke Quay station after they finished buying the souvenirs. Coincidentally, I was in the same MRT at that time and that's why I met them in the MRT.
Despite this incident, my friends and I still enjoyed our trip to Singapore very much. I was wrong in this incident, because I should have called out my friends' names instead of 'Hello!' when I was left behind. Therefore, this incident definitely taught me an important lesson, that is I should react appropriately whenever I face problems.
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| Singapore MRT Map (click to view full size) |
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