Skywatch Friday - Crane

The same crane but taken different times of the day.

The above photo was taken in the morning where the moon is still visible.
The above photo taken with the same crane but in the evenng when the sun is setting.

For other sky watchers, please hop over to Skywatch blog

Ang Mo Kio West Garden Part 5

Spotted a lot of these powder puff flowers in the garden. I guess they are called powder puff becuase they looked like the powder puff in the cosmetics or is it the other way round.

Since I started blogging, I try to make an effort to find out the names of flowers and insects.

This is the last post about the garden.

Ang Mo Kio West Garden Part 4 - Dragonflies

I should have taken my new camera out instead of my old camera. It could have zoom the dragonflies bigger.

There are so many dragonflies flying above the pond. I think the dragonfly is known as Acisoma panorpoides and probably a male one. Correct me if I am wrong. You can view the list of the scientific names of dragon from this website.



Sorry for the blur vision, I am using my old camera that could only zoom 3 times...argggg. Next time, I need to have two cameras in my bag...lol. I still like my old camera except it cant zoom as many times as my new camera. Been so attached to my old camera.

Ang Mo Kio West Garden Part 3

Singapore is not only a food and shopping paradise. Singapore is known as a clean and green city or Garden City. Almost every estate comes with a garden or park (big or small). Even in the city, you can find many tall trees and they are well taken care of. Next time, you are in Orchard Road Shopping, just looked at the numerous tall trees there.

Singapore is a very organised country. Even the estate are so well planned and built to ensure residents can shop in their own estate, have their own library, clinics and have good transport system (MRT and Buses) as well as a beautiful garden.

Ang Mo Kio West Garden is the bigger of the two gardens in Ang Mo Kio Town. The other garden is Ang Mo Kio East Garden. Hopefully, I can climb the hill to Ang Mo Kio East Garden if I next visit Ang Mo Kio.

This is the favourite part of Ang Mo Kio West Garden that I like. It is quiet in the garden now cause it is about noon and the hot sun is keeping people away except me..lol.

There are so many lotus plants in the pond.

I was not at the pond at the right time, cause not many lotus bloom at this time. If you enlarge the photo, you can see many lotus buds in the background. If you are lucky, you can see the pond full of lotus flowers blooming at the same time.

This place is a good place if you want to take photo of dragonflies. There are lots of them in here. Geez, I wish I brought my new camera instead of this old camera. I could have zoom better with the new camera.

A short video showing the surrounding garden.

Please visit "That's my World" for other parts of the world.

Note:

You can visit Ang Mo Kio Town by MRT and alight at Ang Mo Kio Station.

Ang Mo Kio West Garden is opposite Ang Mo Kio Library while Ang Mo Kio East Garden is beside the MRT Station.

Ang Mo Kio West Garden Part 2

Ang Mo Kio West Garden is bigger than the other garden in Ang Mo Kio East. I saw these beautiful steps with all the tall trees. I wondering what is on top of the hill. My head was saying go up and see but my knees said No No No...lol. As you age, you knees are not strong anymore.

There seems to be a park at the top of the hill. In the morning and evening, this place will be a favourite with joggers and many residents come here and exercise.

Ang Mo Kio West Garden - Part 1

This is the first time that I visited this garden in Ang Mo Kio Town. I think there is another garden near the Ang Mo Kio MRT Station.

The playground looked so much fun, I am sure the kids love them.

Besides the playground, there's a park beside it. I will post them another day. You can read more about the garden in here.

Almost every town in Singapore besides Ang Mo Kio, comes with playground, shops, market, etc. But normally the bigger town will have malls in them.

It makes life easier for the citizen. Actually, you dont have to own a car in Singapore, you can go anywhere very quickly by public transport or just shop in your own estate.

Ang Mo Kio is accessible by buses and you can visit the town by taking the MRT Train to Ang Mo Kio Station.

Ang Mo Kio

Singapore has many estates all over the island that are self contained. Self contained meaning, they have all the facilities inside the estate. There are malls, library, clinics, shops, market, hawker centres, etc. Residents dont have to travel all the way to the city to get their shopping done. They can just do it right at their own estate.

This is part of Ang Mo Kio. Dont be fooled by my photos. The photo might make the town looked quiet and sleepy but if you would to go to the central of Ang Mo Kio, there's where the action is.

It is more crowded and noisy in the central where most shops and malls are located.

The word "Ang Mo Kio" has many meanings. It sounded like tomatoes in Hokkien but some thought that the estate was named after bridge (Kio) and Ang Mo (Red Hair). It could be a British Engineer (probably with red hair) was responsible to built a bridge in this estate and the locals named the area Ang Mo Kio. You could read the whole story in Infopedia.

The blue building in the above photo is the library in Ang Mo Kio. But nowadays, we have smaller libraries located in the malls in newer towns, so as to encourage more to read books.

I spotted a nursery beside the library.

Sorry no photos of Ang Mo Kio Central cause I did not venture into there and I dont stay in Ang Mo Kio.

Skywatch Friady - Crane

So sorry for taking so long to re join skywatch. Been so busy lately and it took me so long to get back to normal blogging. Moreover I almost run out of photos to blog...lol. Gotta get out there to take more photos. Singapore is getting to become a very interesting and attractive place to visit.

The Universal Studio in Sentosa, Singapore is open but not all the attractions are ready so I will not visit it yet.

You have to wait a long time for me to take photos of the casino (entrance only) cause I am not a gambler so not eager to take photos of the casino....hahaha.

But next week, another intergrated resort(Marina Bay Sands) will be opening and there's a beautiful bridge (no official name yet) that will be opening this weekend. So I have to go there for photo taking. :)

And also waiting eagerly for the opening of the Gardens By The Bay in Marina. Not sure when this will be ready. I will tell you all more when they are opened and I get my photos.

I like these photos of the sky. These few weeks, the weather has been gloomy and raining. Took these during the evening.

Lots of cranes and constructions can be found all over Singapore because we are going for the tourism and making Singapore very attractive for tourists, since many big factories are shifting out of Singapore and going to China for cheap labour.

For other sky watchers, please hop over to Skywatch blog

Liang Seah Street

This is Liang Seah Street, named after a millionaire who had contribute to the town during the early days.

These shophouses are renovated from the old shophouses that were built during the colonial times.

Now the shophouses are mostly restaurants, pubs, eateries, etc.

You can go to Liang Seah Street via the Bugis MRT Station, i.e. opposite Bugis Junction.

Bugis Junction

I hesitated to post these photos cause they are not well taken and quite blur. But since DongHo requested for some photos of Bugis. I bravely put these blur photos in this post...lol. Give me the opportunity to tell some stories of Bugis...hehehe.

Bugis Junction is sitting on what used to be a red light district. It is often patronized by many American and British Sailors when their ships docked here. There used to be a lot of "Ah Gua" (transveittes). There's a Ah Gua show at Bugis too. And along the streets are many stalls that sold very good food. I remember going there for dinner when I need to work overtime duing my younger days, cause my office is in Middle Road near Bugis. I worked for an australian company and that was one of my best company that I ever worked for.

Now the red light district has been cleaned and what remains are the rows of shophouses (in the above photo) that been converted to be Bugis Junction. The glass roof are added as part of the renovation. Before conversion, the whole street was very noisy, crowded and dirty and there's no roof over the street so when the rain comes, it affected business. Those "Ah Gua" disappeared too but we can still spot some of them in other parts of Singapore.

There are many little kiosks selling cute gifts and souvenirs.

Please scroll down for my Label and view other photos of Bugis and also do visit the Singapore's Largest Street Shopping in Bugis for good bargains. You can view the photos in my previous post in here.

Bugis Junction is just above Bugis MRT Station. And just opposite Bugis Junction is Singapore Largest Street Shopping and also another new mall called Iluma. And if you walked through the Bugis Largest Street Shopping, you can find Waterloo Street where the famous Goddess of Mercy's Temple is located.

I hope the above information is useful to those who visit Bugis.

313 Somerset

This is a new shopping centre in Orchard Road that was opened last year. This will be one of my favourite mall in Orchard Road. Love the way the shops are arranged in the mall. Easy to move around and find the shops.

And the food court is my favourite...lol. I will go back there and take more photos when I next visit the mall.

Can you spot the 313 in the above photo?

The resting and meeting place on the ground floor of the mall. It is so funny how my friend sat at one corner of the resting place and I was on the other end of the corner. We will just waiting for each other without realizing we were actually so near each other, till J called me on the phone...lol. That's our meeting point at the mall. So J, if you are reading this, when are we going to 313 again. :)

The food court.....yummy...

Cute Car

This car is so cute. It looked like it has a pair of eyes and a nose and mouth. This photo was taken last year at Orchard Central. Cannot remember why the car was on display there.

Orchard Central - WIndow Display

Oh I love the window display at Orchard Central at the basement but there are no window/glass here. They are in the open space at the basement.

I love looking at window display and when I was younger, I even toyed with the idea of being in this line. But somehow I ended up doing accounting, a very boring job.

But I did brighten my office during christmas and chinese new year. I would use christmas cards and pin them on the wall to make a shape of a christmas tree and my boss was surprised that I can be so creative...lol. Then another department of my office copycat my christmas tree decoration. I should "sue" them for copyright...hahaha

Sculpture - Takashimaya

Infront of Ngee Ann City, are these two sculptures. They seems to be dancing.

Sculpture

If you like arts and sculptures, Orchard Central is for you. Almost every floor, you can be fascinated by many sculptures. You can view my previous postings of the other sculptures in here. There are more sculptures and arts in Orchard Central, which I have not taken any photos yet.

Not sure what this sculpture is but it looked like a nut to me.

This flower pot looked just like the sculpture in the above photo.

Singapore River-Clarke Quay

This looked like a huge umbrella.

This is Clarke Quay, formerly where all these buildings in the above photos are warehouses. They are now mostly pubs and restaurants. It will be crowded at night especially during the weekends.

All these UFOs looking shelters are outdoor eateries.

Awards

Below are the three awards I received today. The One Lovely Blogger, Humanity and the cute Sugar Doll Awards.

Wow three awards in a row from CC of LacenRibbons. Thank you so much CC.

I'm supposed to list 10 things about myself. Okay, I need to update what I am doing lately.

1. I hate to call myself a hoarder but sadly I am one...lol. I love collecting keychains from different countries that I visited and some are given to me by my friends and family members. I love keeping empty beautiful tins/cans/boxes. I also love to keep beautiful shopping bags. And not forgetting my 30 years old collection of cocktail stirrers...hahaha. You can view them in my previous post by clicking on them.

2. Lately I am so crazy over sudoku. I started from easy to medium, hard and now am on evil level...lol

3. Loves travelling but hated long flight.

4. Loves photography and taking photos of objects or places that interest me.

5. Loves experimenting cooking/baking on recipes I found in the internet or papers.

6. Loves chatting with CC of Lace n Ribbons, she is one lovely lady that gives me a lot of inspiration and ideas. She is very good in her crafts and writting. One day, I wish she could write a book of her three little friends and I will be the first one to receive her book. :)

7. Loves blogging but nowadays trying to find time to blog more with more photos. I am running out of photos, I need to go out and hunt for more photos.

8. Loves shopping with my childhood friend, Jen and going buffet with her. We can really chat and shop at the same time..lol.

9. Loves ironing but hate doing the washing.

10. Loves going out for meals with my husband and two sons. I am so proud of my two sons. It is so interesting to listen to what they talked about their life and how different they are compared to my teenage times. My sons have definitely grown so big and I always thought they are still my babies...hahaha.

11. One more about myself. I loves the colour, purple and my favourite flower is Lavender. :) I loves the smell of them.

Warehouses along Singapore River

Most of the old warehouses along Singapore River have been converted to restaurants and pubs.

Even the bumboats are used as restaurants.

Some of the bumboats are used as river taxis to ferry tourists to sightsee the scenery of Singapore along the Singapore River.

This waterfront restaurant is Indochine,it has a very nice view of the Singapore River. There are many terracotta soldiers at the front of their restaurants. But they are not the real thing, just replicas.