Half a day at Gardens by the Bay

One of the holiday programme was to visit Gardens by the Bay because Little One loves the waterplay located in the Children's Garden.  

We visited on the 28th Nov but what a surprise we had as we ventured down the site that day. Spot something different here? This was taken in the evening on our way back.

Festive sights!

Yay! Spotted this? Gardens by the Bay is one of the place which we love to visit during the festive months. Last year they had various free skits and workshops. This year, Christmas Wonderland! 

This is free admission to public but standard ticketing charges still apply for admission into the Conservatories (10% discount is available if you purchase online) at Gardens by the Bay. Below are the dates of event.

The Luminarie light sculptures :from 29 November 2014 to 1 January 2015,

Festive Markets:from 29 November 2014 to 21 December 2014. 

Yuletide in the Flower Dome Conservatory: 17 November 2014 to 6 January 2015.

Greeting Arch

 Below photos are random order. We have been walking to and fro, round and round the gardens. Seriously, at certain point of time, we were lost but not totally lost. We tend to spot things that we did not see previously. And guess what we have not seen all the sculptures mentioned here

Don't you love these dragonflies on the Christmas tree? Dragonfly is the logo of Gardens by the Bay

Clockwise from top left: Cute Snowman, stunning Cassa Armonica, Festive Market booths selling different merchandise and Spiegeltent (a travelling 'mirror' tent from the Netherlands. You could dine here)

The maleficent Spalliera. Without its dazzling lights, does it reminds you Queen Elsa's caatle? It snows at certain timings
7:30pm - 7:40pm, 8:20pm - 8:30pm,
9:05pm - 9:15pm & 9:45pm - 10pm 

Spiegeltent (Up close) Look at those deatils! Beautiful, isn't it?

Reaching for the Christmas ornament.

More booths

Super Tree Grove

Environmentally Sustainable Functions (quoted from Gardens by the Bay website)

Bet you didn't know the below. I didn't too!

• Eleven Supertrees will have canopies embedded with environmentally sustainable functions.
• Some will have photovoltaic cells to harvest solar energy for lighting up the Supertrees. Others will be integrated with the cooled conservatories and serve as air exhaust receptacles.

Super Tree Grove. Spot the highest Supertree which is 50m high. I think it's not difficult to spot from here. A bistro (IndoChine) is located at the top of it

Supertrees

Supertree Dining. Where else to admire the Supertrees while dining. Here you will find various cusine, including my favorite Hill Street Coffee Shop

Exploration in the Gardens

Gardens by the Bay is one of the places in Singapore where by you can learn lots about Singapore. Our first garden is on Fort Canning, the second is Singapore Botanic Gardens and this is the third garden.

Did you know it's masterplan is inspired by orchid flower? Look at the map to see.

You would find pretty flowering plants, unique tree barks, sculptures and more details of various different gardens namely, the Indian Garden, Chinese Garden, Malay Garden and Colonial Garden. 

Look at the floor!

Indian Garden

The Indian Garden is laid out in the shape of a traditional folk art floral motif design known as Kolam. You can read about Indian Food and Ayuverda( The Science of Life) Medicine.

Indian Elephants sculptures spotted.

Chinese Garden

What is the difference between Chinese Garden and other gardens? Chinese Garden focus on landscape, so you would see stones that mimics mountains, streams that mimics rivers, plants that mimics tress, Put them together you would create a scenery that mimics a landscape. 

Here, you can read about the various plants in Chinese culture. 

Moongate

Windows such as these are placed for a special scenic effect.

Outside the Chinese Gardens are Weeping Tea Tree from Australia. They are planted here in substitution of the Weeping Willow . Read the walls to find out why.

Mini waterfall

A very unique red flower

Do you spot a sculpture here outside the Chinese Garden? It is a human cutout, “Li Xiang”.  There are 2 parts of this sculpture but the plants here do a good job of hiding them from the public eyes. The bigger cut out is near the Chinese Garden while the smaller black cut out is nearer to the Malay Garden. It represents the Chinese leaving home to venture out to the Malay Archipalego. Interesting, isn't it?

Malay Garden

This kampung house is a must see, if you want to know the architecture of Malay house then. Of course, the roof is the past was made from leaves of nipah palms.

Colonial Garden

This garden features profitable plants that were grown in Singapore by the colonial government. Somehow, coffee and chocolate were not successful in Singapore. Find out the reasons why by reading the boards such as these below. The successful crops are rubber and nutmegs. There are other crops which are introduced to grow in Singapore.

Love the fireworks like flower

Does this bark remind you of durian thorns?

Scupltures

Planet by Marc Quinn.
This big 7 ton baby seems to  amazingly defy gravity and is seemingly floating from the ground. The sculpture is actually balanced by the sleeping baby's hand. Without architecture knowledge, this is perhaps  an art not possible to create.

Fish sculpture reminds me of those that lives deep in the ocean where lights do not penetrates.

The male and the female lions. Do you know which is which?

Sprouting fountain.

Children's playground

Now, I shall introduce the favorite area of Little One - the children's playground. It is has 2 water play areas. One for the bigger kids and one for the toddlers. There is a open shower area for the kids. There are also playgrounds for kids to play nearby.

It is a great experience every time we come here. We would be back again for the blizzard for more fun!