On the morning of 1st March, the start of term break in SMU, hundreds of student beachgoers and funseekers descended on Tanjung Beach at Sentosa for SMU's annual Waikiki, a 1-day beachfront festival of games and sports. Fortunately for everyone at the beach, the rain had letup before noon and the remaining drizzle was almost imperceptible and failed to faze spirits.

Organised annually by the SMU Sports Union, the 3rd edition of Waikiki is about upholding the good-o-tradition of fun with a unique blend of free-for-all play and carnival-like atmosphere.

Although SMU participants make up the majority, there has been a steady rise in participation from NUS and NTU students - this year, almost 30% of the playing teams are from NUS or NTU.

Says Magdalene Goh, the events director of Waikiki 08: 'The Sports Union puts a lot of effort into organising Waikiki. We've been planning this since December last year. It's a challenging time dealing with the logistics, sponsorship and coordination work for the event that attracts hundreds of people.'

This year's Waikiki features a rare beach game known as BossaBall. This curious sport maintains Brazilian-German origins and is played like Volleyball except:

• Twist no.1- you can use your head, shoulders, legs and any other part of your body to keep the ball in the air.
• Twist no.2- the court is a giant trampoline where all players bop around constantly attempting to balance themselves. Some participants even performed somersaults on the trampoline.

A few metres away from the BossaBall trampoline stands a jousting ring. While not as godzillian in size as the former, jousting has certainly been a regular feature of every Waikiki. No, do not expect horseback knights knocking each other down with lances; our form of jousting involves presidents of CCAs taking up rubber clubs to sweep one another down the elevated stands. Did we hear American Gladiator?

At the end of the matches, the clubs were so worn out that some of the ends were breaking off, but that didn't stop other students and a bubbling gang of children from taking them up for a little friendly 'whack and smack'.

Pushball is almost the most popular and notorious Waikiki game. Pushball basically involves 2 teams trying to muscle-roll an over-sized gigantic beach ball pass the opponent's line. No special skills are needed to play - all it takes to win is strength and a gung-ho attitude. While it may not be anyone's idea of a dignified sport and players have to be prepared for bruises and sores, pushball is good fun.

To convince ourselves that we are as fun and happening as the SMU dudes, we joined in a Frisbee match and were generally impressed with the instant camaraderie and spontaneity.

Waikiki is probably not complete without the hormonal charge of a pageant contest. This year's event featured 4 pairs of contestants, Kristina Tung and Jiang Kejia, Bonnie Wong and Heng Wei ming, Wilson Ho and Lim Jiaying, Goh Zheling and Ashley Liew. Clad in BodyKnits beach chic, the hotbods didn't walk away with prizes without proving their worthiness in trials which include: P'unking an unlucky friend on stage (one was made to do jumping jacks in pants stuffed with sand, while another had circles drawn around his nipples), performing a duet and attempting to get the most body hair off a male partner with sticky tape.

The energy of Waikiki runs on even when the games have ended. It was another good day at the beach for the 3rd time. We probably couldn't wait till Waikiki 2009 to hit the beach again.