Today I decided to go and explore the parks in Singapore. The most effective way to do this was to walk from one end of them to the other. There is a path that links all of the parks together, some of it on a skywalk section.
I found my way to the Kent Ridges end, and had to navigate my way to the entrace after getting off the MRT.
I found myself at the top of the hill for Kent Ridges, and admiring the view to the south of all the container ships round the Singapore Harbour area.
Raine advised me via text that I should watch out for monkeys, After finding my way on to the path, and having seen nothing about monkeys, I expressed my doubt about there existence, and then 1 minute later found a sign advising to not have plastic bags and to not feed the monkeys, which I dutifully sent a picture off.
The first stop along the way was the war museum, describing how the Japanese forces had overcome the Singapore fort of the area, as the people there had expected a naval assault, judging that the land around was too difficult to assault from. This error in judgement led to the fort being captured, and there was stories of what fate awaited the people who were captured by the Japanese.
The next section was more about garden plants than jungle area, and felt more like a garden center than a park, but there were some interesting displays and some fun arrangement of garden stuff.
I tried to capture some butterflies, but they were too unpredictable - the problem with the 300mm lens being that while it made a good view, the butterfiels always had their wings closed when on the leaf and flew out of shot too fast as soon as the wings opened - I would probably have to spend a few days with a tripod just sitting waiting for the right moment!
At the end of the garden center section was the start of the sky walk section. This proved to be a little tricky to find, but once I did it was great to be walking above forest areas, with views out over the sea and city at the same time.
A few birds caught my eye, but I was not fast enough to capture them on film to check up later. From this higher up vantage point though it was easier to see the forest canopy, and appreciate all the trees that were in bloom and how much green land was still left in the city.
By the end of the sky walk section I was feeling quite thirsty, and was pleased to find a vending machine that sold ice tea. My excitement was short lived though when I discovered that every single item on sale in the machine, had £ lit up next to it, meaning there was none left!
I continued on my way regardless, and found myself at Henderson Waves, a bridge which has a design concept similar to the new Transport Museum in glasgow - waves along the horizontal and verticle axis. It was not very good subject matter to photograph very easily from ground level though, but would probably look great using a drone to capture from a distance and height!
At the end this section was a large climb up to the top of the hill overlooking Vivo City Mall, which I was surprised to see a cyclist tackling, despite the hot and humid weather!
By this point I had yet to see a single monkey so I speculated that Raine had been in touch with the monkey representatives and persuaded them to avoid me! None the less, when I got to the top and found the Bell of Happiness, I decided to ring it for her anyway!
I noticed there was a restaurant as well as the top station of a cable car service, but decided that it would almost certainly be too expensive for my tastes (given my history of cable cars and walking up the hills instead!), so made my way on foot down to Vivo City, where I grabbed what I felt was a well deserved meal in the food court.
My next stop after this, was to head to the Bay Gardens, as I knew there was a light show every night. I had what I thought was plenty of time to get there, but it transpired that there was a signalling problem with the MRT, which meant that it took me over an hour to reach the Bayfront MRT station, so I missed the start of the light show.
I didn't mind too much though as I found the loud music was not really to m taste, and although the lights were pretty, it didn't feel like anything very special - probably because I knew it was every night, so not exactly a once in a lifetime experience!
After taking some nice night time shots, I made my way back to the hostel to enjoy some rest!