Okay, so last Saturday Alli and I joined my workplace for their family day outing to the small island called Pulau Ubin.  This island supported several people back in the day via some rock quarries--pulau ubin means granite island in Malay--but now it's just a small sort of nature reserve, with a very few people actually still living there.  So I think Ubin is supposed to be kind of what Singapore was like 60 years ago before it got all developed. 

We had to get up real early so we could catch a bumboat at 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning to get there (not sure why family day needed to begin at 8:30, maybe that's when little kids wake up). Most of the activities were centered at a small resort (think very small hotel), where some activities were planned, generally with children in mind: kite making and flying, beach soccer, kayaking around a tiny lake, fishing in the same tiny lake, and swimming in the same tiny lake.  

Oh and there was lotsa food, of course.  There was also a fish spa (not in the same tiny lake), and quite happily, bike rentals included.  So after spending enough time at the center of activity to wake up and say hi to a few people, Alli and I quickly got to the bikes and set off on our own path.  We rode down to one end of the island, where we got off and walked around a coastal boardwalk out on the water:

and then through a mangrove forest.  We found a nice lookout tower to take in the view:
and just as we were coming back to our bikes we saw what I'd hoped we would- a wild boar! There are hundreds on Ubin, apparently.
We were a little afraid of that idea, boars can be mean and tusky.  This one was calm and tuskless.  When we first walked up there was a family taking pictures with it, like children 3 feet away.  The picture you see above is actually zoomed, I'm not even as close as it looks.  still, she was a neat thing to see.
We cut our bike adventure a little short to get back before the lunch was gone, then had a nice long relaxed lunch catching up with friends.  We dipped our feet in the fish spa for just about 10 minutes before we were told our bumboats were ready to take us back home.

Anyway, nice place to go for a bike ride for sure, quiet and green, and there's other parts of the island we didn't see yet, so we will have to make another trip.