Student takes longest bus ride in S’pore to force himself to study, trip lasts 3 hours

Student takes longest bus ride in Singapore to study

Students in Singapore have often used unorthodox methods to get themselves to study — including bus rides, incredibly enough.

This was the case for 18-year-old Jia Yu, a mass communications student who recently took to TikTok to share about how he embarked on the longest bus ride in Singapore to force himself to study.

Spanning three hours, the trip took him from Woodlands to Changi Airport and back again, covering 73.8km and passing through 75 bus stops.

Student uses longest bus ride in Singapore to study

In the video, Jia Yu shared that he chose to embark on the trip as he had a lot of work he had been procrastinating on since school started, and studying in the library was no longer productive for him.

“So I decided on a change of scenery — or more accurately, scenery that kept changing,” he shared, adding that he boarded the bus at 12.50pm on 1 July.

Settling in at the back of the bus, he noted that the vehicle remained mostly empty except for some parts of the trip, where it would get crowded with passengers.

Jia Yu went on to share that he only became productive after the bus reached Sembawang. An hour later, he looked up and realised with a start that he had already reached Changi Airport.

“It took us only an hour-ish to get to Changi Airport,” Jia Yu pointed out with surprise. “I’m pretty sure I know like eight of my friends who have a longer commute than that.”

He then admitted that there was a lack of traffic during his trip, which might have been due to it being a Monday afternoon.

Challenges during ride involved keeping laptop steady

The bus then had to loop back to Woodlands, only leaving the airport at 2.30pm.

A challenge also emerged for Jia Yu — he had to use quite a bit of data for his schoolwork, needing the internet hotspot on his phone and quickly draining his phone’s battery.

In addition, Jia Yu admitted that it became difficult to ensure his laptop was steady with how much the bus shook during the journey.

“I locked in for another hour and after going through some expressways, we were already at Yishun,” he said.

At around 3.35pm, Jia Yu entered the last stretch of his trip — which had taken its toll on him.

“By the time we looked back to Woodlands, my butt was feeling a bit numb,” he said.

Jia Yu eventually reached the bus interchange at Woodlands at 3.45pm, having achieved his goal of getting some work done.

Motion sickness no issue for student during journey

Speaking to MS News, he shared that he had previously attempted to take the trip on 21 June but was unaware that the bus would loop back to Woodlands.

Having boarded it from Changi Airport, he had to get off the bus halfway and resort to attempting the challenge for another day, scrapping the footage he had recorded thus far.

“If I’m being 100% honest, my primary motivation for doing this was because it sounded like a good premise for a TikTok,” he confessed. “It’s kind of like when I tried hiking across Singapore on my YouTube; it just sounds good as a video title and hook for people to want to watch it.”

“I also genuinely wanted to study, so by doing this challenge, I was able to kill two birds with one stone.”

Incredibly enough, motion sickness was not an issue for him as he did not typically suffer from it while travelling.

“Whenever I’m on a car, train, bus or plane, I can read a book or use my phone without any problem,” he said.

Phone’s battery was drained by end of trip

Keeping his laptop and phone alive throughout the longest bus ride he had ever taken could have been an issue — but Jia Yu came well-prepared for such a challenge.

He shared with MS News that he had fully charged his laptop and phone beforehand. With a full battery, the laptop could easily last all hours of the trip.

“By the time I got off the bus, my laptop had around 20-30% left,” Jia Yu said.

On the other hand, his phone’s battery was only at 2% by the end of the journey, as he had to use its hotspot to work due to the bus having no wifi.

In addition, he recorded footage of the trip on the device, draining its battery even further.

“There wasn’t any charging ports available in the bus I was riding,” Jia Yu said.

Studying in other environments would be better

Ultimately, Jia Yu felt that studying in the library or any similarly comfortable environment would be better.

“This is because there’s just a lot of the little annoying things that you have to do to make your studying environment conducive,” he said.

This involved fully charging both his phone and laptop, ensuring his phone had enough data for work, dealing with the shaking of the bus, and waiting to use the toilet as he would have to disembark to relieve himself.

“I was able to do all of these just fine, but I can see why other people wouldn’t do it,” Jia Yu said. “It’s a unique and quirky change up of the environment for sure, but it’s also easier to just either study at home or in the library.”

Also read: Expat tries S’pore’s ‘longest covered walk’ from Millenia Walk to Funan, journey takes 42 mins

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Featured image adapted from @keerigiri on TikTok.