bukit panjang park 5

this is the view from my balcony, an unobstructed view of the pang sua pond. this is a storm water pond. the rain water collected is used for watering roadside plants all over singapore. there are tortoises and fish in this pond. although there are signs that say fishing is prohibited, a lot of fishing is done around the pond. as long as nets are not used, the anglers are usually left undisturbed by the policemen from the npc.

the pond underwent dredging from august 2004 to the beginning of this year. it is much deeper now and we don't get to see patches of earth like we used to do, during the dry period, before the pond was deepened.

my neighbour just told me he had sold his unit for $390k and would be moving to bukit batok. i am not thinking of selling my place because you cannot get this kind of view in any other hdb estate.

sembawang park

sembawang park located at the end of sembawang road where bus service 882 terminates, it is one of the quieter and less crowded parks, on weekends, in singapore. there is the historic beaulieu house which now houses a chinese restaurant. the other entrance to the park is at tuah road. the restaurant was closed down for a while before it reopened under the same name. when it was closed, the owner of the restaurant operated an outlet at the safra yacht club along admiralty west road.

the jetty - facing johor - is very popular with anglers and crab catchers. the flower crabs are mostly of medium and small sizes. it is uncommon to land a big one in this area. there are facilities for bbq and picnic. this place is popular with residents from the sembawang area.

admiralty primary school held its family day at the park sometime in april this year.

more than 20 years ago, together with mc wong, i caught more than thirty flower crabs from the same jetty. took them home and my mother had them steamed for dinner.

singapore polo club restaurant

the singapore polo club tucked away in mt pleasant road and next to the police academy - which is moving to choa chu kang soon - has a restaurant which is open to the public.

while the food at the polo club is simple - it has just one cafe - it has an enviable view of the polo field where on weekends, diners get a kick out of watching the occasional polo match complete with players in full riding gear.

it is quite an exclusive club because even though it is facing the main road, it is flanked by the bukit brown secondary forest at the back, so it is very enclosed, in a way. it cannot be seen from the main road - thomson road - as it it separated from the road by a canal. when i was a boy, i used to catch 'longkang fish' in the same canal.

the food portion is quite big, therefore it is advisable to share if you go there in a group.

bottletree village @ sembawang

bottletree restaurant first existed in a coffee shop not far from its present site. i patronised the place a few times because i liked the atmosphere, the ambience. it reminded me of some out-of-town place in malaysia. then, its speciality, as far as i know, was soft-shell crabs. my friend victor introduced me to the place. later it moved to its present site. then it was called the sembawang seafood centre.

when the authority closed the seasports centre, it moved again, this time to a workers' canteen along yishun ave 2. the stall was open only in the night.

then i heard that it had secured a new lease for the seasports centre again. this time, it had found a partner and was going into it in a big way.

the bottle trees and some other protected plants were shipped over from australia. a mature bottle tree costs tens of thousand of dollars. the big ones at sembawang cost $30 000 each.

these days, i avoid going to the place on weekends because of the crowd and hence the long wait for the food. to cut down on waiting time on weekends, they have set menus on saturdays and sundays.

gina's vadai

i chanced upon gina's vadai when she had a stall at a coffee shop in geylang east, near victoria school before it moved to its present site. then it had the name born again gina's vadai. she sold mainly prawn vadais. there were none of the new additions like vegetable vadai, cheese vadai and ikan bilis vadai.

i used to buy back for my former colleagues at monk's hill secondary school. they rated the vadai as very good, especially when the vadais are still hot. better, if they are piping hot.

when she shifted to simpang bedok i really missed her vadai but i did not try to locate the stall/shop as it was way out in the east. then i came upon her webpage. so, one day i set out looking for the stall in bedok. i called the number. luckily, i called. that's when i found out that she had relocated to east coast road.

her present location is 218 east coast road, near the holy family church on chapel road. the price for 3 pieces of prawn vadai is $2 and the cheese vadai costs $1.50 a piece.

ate two prawn vadais. seem to have suffered some drop in quality, not as tasty as they used to be. but, still better than others. i was told that gordon's at siglap market is better but i have not tried the vadai at gordon's.

(have tried gordon's. i still prefer gina's. gordon prices his prawn vadais at 70 cents a piece or $2 for 3 pieces.)

gem 2 - lim chu kang

apart from the farms and restaurants, there are some things found at lim chu kang that are not found elsewhere in singapore.

do you know that there is this stream and pond where the lotus plants grow wild. i do not mean that they are found in great abundance. i mean they grow on their own; they are not planted. the bulk of it is actually located within a fenced area, the transmitting & receiving stations of bbc. there are, however, some growing outside the fenced area, an area accessible to the public.

along the many lanes of lim chu kang, there are fruit trees planted by the sides of the lanes(roads). one not so common fruit tree is the surinam cherry. The fruit should be picked only when they are so ripe as to fall into the hand at the lightest touch, otherwise they will be undesirably resinous. some people do help themselves to the fruit on these trees. they come armed with plastic bags and pails to harvest the fruit.

aside from the surinam cherry, other fruit trees include the monkey apple, soursop, jambu mawar, buah long long and meninjau.

a lot of people are also not aware that admission to the sungei buloh bird sanctuary is free on weekdays and also on weekends, provided you are there before 8.30 a.m. they charge a small admission fees after 8.30 a.m.

if you go to ivy's bollywood, it's not worth paying the $2 to tour the farm.

exploring singapore

kent ridge park

there are some gems in s'pore not known to many s'poreans. for example, at kent ridge park, next to the normanton park estate, the fish and tortoises in this pond are so 'people friendly' that they do not seem to be tentative when it comes to accepting food from humans. they surface in shoals and fight for the crumbs thrown into the water. the average size of the fish is about 24cm but the bigger ones which measure more than 60cm tend to be cautious and stay further from the edge of the water. most are tilapia but i guess the big ones are snake fish.

in the same park is the canopy walk where you are above the tree tops. the canopy walk - measuring 280-metres long, the bridge links kent ridge park to the museum reflections of bukit chandu. walk along the bridge and you may be able to see sunbirds, doves, squirrels, lizards and white-crested laughing thrushes. apart from the signages that provide educational information on the various plants at the park, there is also a shelter for visitors to take a short break.

i have seen some adventurous people go to the park to climb the trees using ropes. they usually do this on a weekend. the tall trees, sparsely distributed in the park, are ideal for this activity.

from the park, you can look out to sea and see pulau bukom and the other nearby southern islands. i reckon it will be an ideal spot to catch fireworks at sentosa.