The 5 o'clock tree

Have you heard of this tree before? I am sure you know this tree as it is commonly known as the Rain Tree. It is a common roadside tree in Singapore. Ever since I read the book, Durians are not only fruits, Little One and I had been observing Rain Trees. We noticed the leaflets would close during rainy days and evening. We even start to observe whether the leaflets would close at 5 o'clock.
These are the results.

12 noon

5 o'clock

Ehhhh...... sometimes, the leaflets close but sometimes, they do not. So what is wrong?

5 o'clock

After searching the internet, this is the explanation:

The tree’s leaflets close just before sunset. This is why it is called the Pukul Lima in Malay, which means ‘five o’clock’. The sunset hour in Singapore and Malaysia used to be 5 pm before changes were made to Standard Time in the early 1980s.

-Nparks

If you love to know more about this tree, read the below sources.

Sources:
https://www.nparks.gov.sg/activities/family-time-with-nature/recommended-activities/know-10-trees/1-rain-tree

https://www.nparks.gov.sg/gardens-parks-and-nature/heritage-trees/ht-2014-228

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Lessons from the school holidays

In a blink of an eye, today is officially the last day of school holidays. Little One will have to resume her usual schedule next week.

As much as I wanted to prepare her to do more cooking this holiday, I realised we ran out of time frequently. Gathering with old friends, running around for free programmes and courses, nature excursions, catching up on schoolwork, juggling bits of household chore every now and then. We were so busy that I hardly find time to cook together, much less to blog. Fortunately, we managed to make tapioca pudding together.

In case you wonder whether schools assign homework for P1. I am not sure for the rest of the primary schools but there were none from her school. I issued homework myself as a form of revision. Also, I am focusing on Chinese, which is still her least favorite subjects. I am glad to say the past few days, she told me that I made Chinese more fun.

A lesson I have learnt this holiday is to slow down. First two weeks, we were practically running around from day to day. Yes, much of our time was spent on the road, travelling. I realised after a week or so, it was tiring to race round the whole of Singapore with her. We did not get the chance to fully enjoy ourselves and we had to start to journey again to the next destination.

I realised it was time to slow down. As her schedule was already being booked prior the holidays, I did not cancel any programmes and she attended them. I am aware there are plenty of fun activities that are going on this holiday but I try not to plan to have back to back activity. It will be physically demanding to rush around. Lesson learnt. The last couple of days we did not have any programmes on our calendar and we kept it that way. It is time to let Little One to fully rest before she returns to school next week.

Nevertheless, we had a fun filled holiday. I asked Little One what she enjoyed most during the holiday. Not surprising, most of the activities she told me are not the activities that I signed her up. Below are some of the activities she enjoyed most during this holiday.

Labrador Park during low tide. I never know the tides can be as low as this!

Labrador Low Tide Exploration
We did this during one of the low tide days. It was planned without any programmes to follow thereafter. We spent longer time than we expected. Little One loves capturing pictures of the place while I spent my time explaining to her the creatures we saw on the intertidal zone.

Not her first ride but she still enjoys it.

Bum boat ride to Pulau Ubin
We signed up for a Sensory Trail at Palau Ubin and guessed what, she loves the boat ride more than the trail itself. The ride is S$3 per pax/trip.

Cosplay 
She had her first cosplay and attended a tea party. Kids who loves to dress up would of course love such activity.

Collecting saga seeds
This activity was conducted within the time we had after a nature trail with Nparks before we had our lunch.

____________________________

I know what to look out for before I plan feverishly her schedule. Her interest has to come first and not to plan back to back to fully enjoy ourselves.

QingMing in Bukit Brown (26 March 2016)

Last month I joined a tour conducted by the Brownies to Bukit Brown again. It had been quite some time I last visited Bukit Brown. This was the first time ever since the old cemetery access was not available. From the Bukit Brown website, I noted there were actually 2 entrances to the cemetery. That day the meeting point was at a platform after passing through Lorong Halwa.

(credit: Bukit Brown)

As Qingming (in fact, the actual day was yesterday according to Chinese calendar) was around the corner and the cemetery is bustling with activity again.  I joined the tour because I wanted to have a close-up look of families visiting the graves of their ancestors with offerings, and tombkeepers busy themselves with sprucing up graves ahead of the descendants' visits. I have never been to a cemetery during Qing Ming period.

Upon arrival from the bus, immediately I smelt smoke, which reminds me of the haze we had last year. This smell is pretty common especially when joss papers and offerings are burnt. Upon navigating around, I saw smoke spiraling from one spot near the bridge over Lornie Road. Someone had already paid a visit to their ancestor.
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Besides visiting a new grave cluster, the family of Lim Chong Pang, I learnt something new on this trip.

Cars and vehicles were slowly getting into the cemetery. This road is pretty narrow. There was a jam right ahead.

Quite a number of families were seen in the cemetery that day.

2 Earth Deities?

Offerings to the ancestors, includes food, joss sticks and candles. Before these were done, the descendants have to pray to the Earth deity. This is located on either side of the tomb. (see the pair of candles on the side) Joss papers are burnt last.

I learnt, there are male and female  Earth deities (indicated by the arrow). Almost every tomb has a Earth Deity. (either the male or the female)

The male Earth Deity

The female Earth Deity

Mass Grave?

During the Japanese Occupation, it was told that there was mass grave for civilian bodies near this stream.  I don't think these bodies could survived under such a condition, unlike the those on the hills.

Busy Tomb keepers 

This period of time is the busiest time for the tomb keepers. The services they offer are quite a handful. However, during this period, they would be offering cleaning or grass cutting services before the descendants come to pay their ancestors a visit. There are families who engage their services to maintain the tombs throughout the year for a fee.

Tomb keepers in action

One of the permanent makeshift tent for the tomb keepers.

Nature

This morning, it was the first time I spotted lots of living things besides the horses. Below are just some. One of the group member pointed out there are curry leaves too!

Red dragonfly

Black butterfly

The appearance of horses made some children squealed in delight

Other offerings

Flowers such as chrysanthemum is being offered

A more elaborated offering.

Orchid and drinks as offering. 5 colour paper on the graves are not meant to be burnt.
过 路钱,a small stack of beige rectangular shaped paper with three holes punched onto them.are being thrown around too. It is believed to be the ‘money’ used by the deceased when they travel from places to places in the underworld. Sometimes, these were scattered on the trees. These are meant for the wandering spirits. I forgot to ask why these aren't burnt.

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Swiftlet Nests in Singapore

Yes, you heard me right! There are real Swiftlets' nests, commonly known as Bird's Nest ( made by the swiftlets using solidified saliva), in Singapore! I happened to stumbled upon one such area during the last weekend to visit Mt Imbiah Battery. I had signed up some tours for Battle for Singapore and this trip was one of it. What I had not expected is to find intact bird's nests in the battery.

Upon arrival, I joined a group of history enthusiasts. We were told current status of Mt Imbiah, stories of WW2, the history of the battery, and the suspected use of each rooms. Although the place was decomissioned prior WW2, this battery is the only intact battery in Singapore that remained relatively untouched after the British army left Singapore. The rest of the batteries (Fort Siloso and Fort Connaught) in Sentosa had been bombed. The underground rooms were where the infantry used to store weapons was flooded and almost suffered the fate of being buried away as a result. Luckily, that idea was being abandoned and measures were made to drain away the water. Otherwise, we will not get the chance to visit and experience how it was like in such a battery. 

We were also brought through a very narrow passageway (basically the passageway is the perimeter of the underground magazine), we were told that this passage will help to keep the ammunition that were stored next to it dry. It is also in this passageway, we found the swiftlet nests. We were told the swiftlets are Jin Si Yan and the nests found here are poisonous, not for human consumption. Walking though the narrow passageway in a dark and groomy environment is pretty scary if you asked me. We were told to switch on our torchlight in our phone but I don't know how to operate mine. Luckily, majority of the members of the group had their lights on, so I followed behind. From their lights, I managed to see 2 rows of bird nests near the ceiling on the both sides of the corridor and snapped a picture of 2 nests next to each other (below). You can imagine the excitement I had because I had never seen any bird nests of any kind in my life before. What an experience it was! The swiftlets were probably frightened by us as we were making quite a commotion and they flew all over the place. Luckily, we were told there were swiflets in the passageway, otherwise I may have thought they were bats. One of the birds even bumped into my hand. In the innermost of the passageway, I felt the floor soft beneath my shoes. I could not see what it was. I believe they are feathers. When we were finally out, one of the guides asked whether we saw any big fat cockroaches! Eeewwww... Yes, these are some of the creatures you can find here, much to my amusement. I am sorry to tell you that the magazine is not open to public except in tours like this. Plans are made to preserve the site. I do hope in future, it will be open to public, including the magazine.

Bird nests in Mt Imbiah Battery

In the next photo collage, I am pleased to tell you that you will be able to visit and know more about swiftlets in Swiftlet Garden Museum. This particular museum is located at D'Kranji Farm Resort. When we first saw this museum during our farm hop last December, I was pretty excited to know more. It is not a very big museum but with the guided tour, you will be able to know the history of Bird's Nest and how it was harvested. It was Admiral Cheng Ho who brought them back as delicacy for the royal family from the South East Asia. You will also learnt that swiftlets are  monogamous and not all swiftlets are able to produce edible bird nest, only a few species do. You get to know how despicable some manufacturers are to the extent of bleaching bird nest to make them white so that they are be sold as premium bird nests.

You also get to learn how this particular plant, Swiftlet Garden Group of companies , harvest their own bird nests in swiftlet houses without harming the swiftlets and how these nests were processed. Essences ( glycoprotein extracts to produce food supplements for anti-cancer -SGBx, and stem cell therapy-NUSGx) of bird nest were extracted to make cookies, chocolates and coffee. To find out more, you may want to visit their homepage. The items can be purchase from their visitor's centre. Although I believe in consuming whole food rather than extracts (which were made into products), I bought the oats and blackcurrent cookies because Little One likes them.  

We do hope to visit the musuem again. Hopefully if we are not rushing for time so that we can stay and read the boards in the museum. At that time, I also wished to visit their farm in Malaysia. Currently, their farm does not have open farm tours available but I do hope that they conduct some day. I am sure plenty of people, especially the Chinese, would be interested.

Swiftlet Garden Museum
Left: Harvesting in swiftlet houses
Bottom Right: Mock up of Bird's Nest in swiftlet house
Top Right: Harvesting naturally in a cave

PS: I am in not affiliated or associated with the above mentioned company. 

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Exploring neighbourhood: Queenstown's Ridout Tea Garden

Many people are familiar with Mc Donald's. How about one that has a playground, a Japanese styled garden a pond with plenty of  terrapins and fishes? Probably in the whole of Singapore, there is only one. If you are there, do look out for the heritage marker to know more of its history. This place was formerly the Queenstown Japanese Garden. The place was burnt to the ground in 1978, fortunately there were no casualties. Do look out for the Commonwealth and Holland Heritage Tour organised by My Queenstown. This tour will be launched soon.

I have been to this Mc Donald's several times with Little One and we simply love to look at the terrapins after our meals. The place is pretty serene with lush greenery. It is a great place for photo-taking. There are bamboos and some pretty plants around too. There is an indoor playground at the back of the Mc Donald's but I seldom see children play in it. 

Ridout Tea Garden

Terrapins

At the side of the fast food restaurant were these brick wall. It look rather old. I wondered whether it is related to the former Japanese Garden then. After attending the launch of  My Community's 3rd tour, Commonwealth and Holland Village heritage tour, I have my answer. Yes, these are the remnants of the former site.

indoor playground

McDonald's @ Ridout Tea Garden, 

Queesnway

#01-580

Singapore 149066

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To further read about this place, you may want to proceed to this post. The blogger had shared her memories about the Mc Donald's as well as the places near it.

Little One @Japanese Garden

We have not been to the Japanese Garden (星和园). Despite that Japanese Garden is close to Chinese Garden, we have not traveled to Japanese Garden on out last trip 2 years ago when we went to Chinese Garden. That was because we were too tired to walk any more. 

After casting my vote on polling day, I decided to bring Little One to Japanese Garden with hubby. This time, we decided to enter via another gate instead of coming through the gate that faces Chinese Garden MRT station. We entered via the gate near Japanese Garden Road. 

Japanese Garden, also commonly known as Jurong Gardens and Seiwaen, is a park located in Jurong East. Built in 1974 by JTC Corporation, it covers 13.5 hectares (135,000 m2) of land.

It is built on an artificial island in the Jurong Lake area connected to the adjacent Chinese Garden island by bridge named the Bridge of Double Beauty .(双秀桥).

In the early 1970s, the landscape of Jurong was increasingly industrialised with the construction of factories and industries as part of the Jurong Town Corporation's (JTC) industrialisation plan. Hence, JTC decided to redress this situation by damming the Jurong River and creating three small islands from the resulting lake. One of these islands became the grounds for the building of the Japanese Garden. The other garden that was built was Chinese Garden. 

Junction of Chinese Garden Road and Japanese Garden Road

Haze looming around Yuan Ching Road

Bridge of Double Beauty .(双秀桥). Chinese Garden is on the other side of this bridge.

Unlike Chinese Garden,  the Japanese Garden is designed with a calmness to evoke inner peace and a meditative state. The styles and methods used for designing the garden are taken from Japan's Muromachi period of 1392 to 1568 and the Azuchi–Momoyama period of 1568 to 1615. Stone lanterns, rocks, arched bridges, lily-filled ponds and traditional summer houses are part of a picturesque landscape.

Hedges near the Guest House. Look at those trees!

Hanging  lantern

Stone lanterns (There are 10 of them) I love the cravings of these

Simple torii  (There are 3 of them but this is the simpliest)

As it was public holiday, we find Japanese Garden was not quite empty. We met at least 10 people.

The serenity- Stone Lantern Valley 

Arched Bridge (This is one of the 3 arched bridges within Japanese Garden)

I love bridges, you can't blame me for taking many shots of the same thing.

Arched bridge next to Guest House

There are 5 pavilions scattered through out the parks for you to rest, unlike Chinese Garden whereby the 4 of them are close to each other.

Guest house view from another angle

Mini waterfall is a little disappointing. I prefer the small brown tree though.

We saw a number of animals, especially birds and fishes.

See if you can spot a bird in this picture. There are 2 photographers too!

Rest House

We saw a couple of these birds over here.

They even have nests on these trees

The only white bridge in the garden

Lotus

The only white Torii

Bridges over calm waters

Some unique red flower

Other side of the pond

If you were to walk further, Science Centre would be in view but there is no bridge that connects Science Centre to this man-made island.

We headed to Bridge of Double Beauty towards Chinese Garden

Surprisingly, we were not very tired this time round but thirsty and hungry. We headed towards to MRT station from here.

How to get here quickly and cheaply:

Nearest way to get to this garden by public transport is via MRT. Alight at Chinese Garden station. Walk towards the 7 storey pagoda. The Bridge of Double Beauty is on the left. Once you cross that bridge you are at Japanese Garden.

Tips:

• The garden is open from 6am to 10pm
• Bring your own snacks and drinks for a picnic. It is not very crowded. 
• Visiting during morning and evening would be best as it is not that hot.
• 30 minutes walk, depending on the activity you want to do in the garden. It is good for relaxation and reflection.
• Wear a good pair of walking shoes as you may want to walk on pebbles or rocks to take good pictures for remembrance.

If you have more time, you may want to explore other places near the garden as well.

• Chinese Garden integration of splendid Chinese architectural features with the natural environment 
• Jurong Lake Park, I have not visit this park yet but it seemed to have a couple of wonderful playgrounds. Both Japanese Garden and Chinese Garden are within Jurong Lake Park. I need to find a day to visit the perimeter.
• Jurong East Swimming Complex. When you walk further out to Chinese Garden MRT Station, you may want to visit the Swimming Complex which is nearby.
• Singapore Science Centre and Omni Theatre. If you are interested in Science, head down to Science Centre but you will have to take a bus (66, 178, 198 , 335). 
• Blk 347 Jurong East Ave 1, Yuhua Market and Hawker Centre 
  This is one of the place to find good local hawker food. Near Chinese Garden Station. See post by SETHLUI.com
• 3 Yung Sheng Road, Taman Jurong Market and Food Centre This requires further walking but my favorite bak chor mee and lor mee and located here. See recommendation by ieatishootipost.sg
  
  

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