Chinese New Year Decoration 2008 (Year of the Rat) at Chinatown

These are this coming Chinese New Year decorations for 2008. The chinese new year mood is not here yet and many stalls are still in the process of putting up their goodies and wares for Chinese New Year for sale. The chinese new year mood will be very high come end of this month and especially during the night.

Winnie the pooh and friends have decided to come to Singapore to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Why? Because they are celebrating the year of the rat with Mickey Mouse. Mickey is seen in many Chinese New Year Decorations and Cards, etc for the year of the rat.

Closer look at Mickey and Donald donning the lion dance suit. They looked cute.

Can you see Mickey and Minnie in the centre of the decorations?

Closer look at Mickey and Minnie Decorations. Have you noticed the chinese character "FU"? It's the only time when a Chinese word is hung/pasted upside down intentionally. The reason being "Fu dao" means "luck or fortune has arrived". But the word "dao" can also means upside-down or arrived. So, the character 福, fu, upside-down is a play on words implying fortune has arrived.

Integrated Resort, Sentosa, Singapore

SENTOSA OLD FERRY TERMINAL...............NOW YOU SEE IT................

NOW YOU DONT....................

Sentosa old ferry terminal is gone, demolished and make way for the much talked about Resorts World at Sentosa . The integrated resort will have hotels, water park, maritime museum,etc and of course the Casino and Universal Studio. It will be completed in a few years time. The other integrated resort will be at Marina.

I am looking forward to them, now I dont have to travel to USA to visit Universal Studio, and I think Singapore will be a more exciting place to visit for tourists.

Not to worry that the sea in front of Vivo City will be polluted with rubbish. The boat man above is there to take care of the cleaniness.

Antiques at the lobby of Singapore Swissotel Merchant Court

When I went to the Ellenborough Market Café at Swissotel Merchant Court Singapore for buffet, something beautiful caught my eyes besides the gorgeous and yummy buffet.

These antiques displayed at the lobby of the hotel are so beautiful that I cant resist taking photos of them.

The below photo is an antique bowl on displayed. It is a very huge bowl and the designs on the bowl are very lovely.

The vases on displayed are very tall about 6 feet. I think they are lovely and must be very expensive.

You need to go to the hotel for their sumptous buffet and dont forget to admire those beautiful art pieces.

Trishaw in Chinatown

Another entry for my chinatown postings. One way of getting around chinatown is to ride in a trishaw.

During the olden times, the trishaw is a two wheeled transport manually pulled by a man in front, it is known as rickshaw. Mostly the rich can afford to sit a trishaw back then. The man pulled rickshaw operated from Jinrickshaw Station in Neil Road.

Bird Eye View Of Singapore

I took these beautiful bird eye view photos of Singapore from a highrise building. It showed the different type of housing Singaporean live in.

Majority of Singaporean live in public housing flats built by Housing Development Board and 90 over percent of HDB residents own their flats and their flats are their assets. These public housing are located in estates with schools, supermarkets, clinics, hawker centres, sports and recreational facilities and shopping malls. There are one room, two room, three room, four room, five room and executive flats.

The rest stay in private landed properties or condominiums, while only a minority stay in rented flats.

If one has a HDB flat with the above view and near amenities, it guaranteed a good selling price for the flat owner.

Singapore Botanic Garden-National Orchid Gardens

This will be my last posting on Singapore Botanic Gardens. For more photos on plants, flowers and cactus, you can view them at my flower blog. I will post them there once I do some reseach on the names of the flowers, trees, etc. I am only an admirer of flowers and amazing trees so am not familiar with their names. :)

Admission to Singapore Botanic Garden is free but admission to its Orchid Garden is S$5.00. It is very worth the money cause there are so many beautiful and unique orchids in the garden.

There is also a VIP garden too where orchids are breed and named after VIP of other countries. I saw many VIP orchids but I failed to find those named after Princess Diana and First Lady of USA, Laura Bush, but I did snap the posters of their orchids. Will post them in my flower blog.

I am so delighted with the beautiful orchids. Their colours and their shapes are so eye catching.

I have yet to find out the names of the above orchids. I still have many photos of beautiful orchids but I have yet to sort them out.

It is a happy day for me at botanic garden. I took a lot of photos, spend quality time at the gardens and learn a lot about the orchids and the amazing trees and not forgetting about those sculptures and my close encounter with the swans. :)

Singapore Botanic Garden-Passing of Knowledge Scultpure

This sculpture is located in the Sun Garden in the Singapore Botanic Gardens where all the cactus are. I like this sculpture very much because I find it very meaningful. The sculpture is known as Passing of Knowledge. It really is like a father passing his knowledge to his child.

Beside this sculpture, there are many cactus plants in this Sun Garden. Geez, I really beginning to like the Botanic Garden, it changes so much since my last visit with my young sons. But my sons are now all grown up, and just like the name of the sculpture, we as parents had passed our knowledge to them. :)

The Passing of Knowledge sculpture (2003) by local sculptor Victor Tan Wee Tar
(Source:http://www.sbg.org.sg/tanglincore/sungarden.asp)

Swing Me Mama Sculpture

Swing Me Mama was sculpted by Dominic Benhura in 1995 using serpentine (spring stone). His inspiration for the sculpture sprung when he was swinging his kids. (source:http://www.sbg.org.sg/tanglincore/sculptures.asp)

I would alway swinged my kids this way too when they were young. I think the sculpture really shows the bond between a mother and her child. There are more sculptures in the Singapore Botanic Garden but alas it rained heavily and I was too tired to continue walking to look at the other attractions in the garden, what a pity.

Singapore Botanic Garden-Swan Lake

This is the Swan Lake in Singapore Botanic Gardens. It used to have many swans but I spotted only two swans. I wondered where all the black swans had gone.

Not sure everyone interested in my tales with these two swans....lol. I thought I would go home empty handed without photos of the swans. The two swans were spotted at the far end of the pond and then I tried to get their attention but the swans just ignore me and ate their food. Just as I was about to give up, these two lovely swans swam so fast to me like a motor boat. It is kind of funny....hahaha. Did you spot their webbed feet, they paddled very fast towards us with their feet.





And now I am so satisfied taking so many photos of these two swans, they actually swam so close to us and stay with us for a long time. I enjoy the moment with the swans and had a fun time at Swans Lake.

Tembusu Tree at Singapore Botanic Gardens

The Tembusu tree at Singapore Botanic Gardens has been identified as a heritage tree and is featured on the Singapore $5 currency note and in postage stamps.

Closer look at a $5 bill of Singapore, where you can see the famous tree.

The uniqueness of this tree is the long branch that grows out from the trunk almost touching the ground and we can actually sit or lie on it. I have fond memories of this tree where my siblings and I would climbed on this tree during our childhood and we had so much fun.

So precious is this heritage tree that it was protected against lightning damages. If you look closely you can view the lightning conductors.

Closer look at the hole in the trunk of the tree, we can actually put our head through the hole.

Singapore Botanic Garden

Singapore Botanic Garden has a very long history. You can view them at http://www.sbg.org.sg/aboutus/ourhistory.asp

This is the main gate of Singapore Botanic Garden and known as Tanglin Gate. This is not a black and white photo, the gate is grey and if you look closely at the tree behind, you can see the green leaves. The gate is very interesting with all the designs.

So what lies behind these beautiful gates. You need to follow my posts closely for the next few days to view them. I hope you will be fascinated by them.

Closer look at the designs of the gate.

The botanic garden is so big that I could only cover about half the garden. The garden is divided into the Tanglin Core, Central Core and Bukit Timah Core.

When the rain came, I had to leave without visiting the Evolution Garden. I guess I will visit the other half of the garden on another visit. Anyway, I was so tired and could not continue walking anymore.....lol. I really enjoyed myself taking photos of the garden and the beautiful flowers.

So you all could guess by now what my next few posts will be about by looking at the above signboard. :)

East Coast Beach (Part 1-Shipping Route)

East Coast Beach is the longest and most popular beach in Singapore while the beaches in Sentosa is the next popular. Over at East Coast Beach, there are many great food stalls, seafood restaurants, different culture restaurants, water sport activities, BBQ, cycling and rollerblading. There are even chalets for holiday makers too.

The beach over here is so much cleaner than Pasir Ris. Though we can view the shipping route from the beach, it is not that polluted at this beach cause much efforts are done to keep this popular beach clean. At least I can see nice clean sand on this beach.....lol

The ships are further away but looked near cause I zoom on them. We used to be the busiest port in the world but that title has since gone to Shanghai. For more info. click here

Another closer look at these huge ships carrying cargos. The ships are not only passing here, they stopped here to refuel, stock up on food and water and ship repairs. These means good economy for us. I think we prefer good economy than nice beaches, we can alway visit nearby Australia for their nice beaches provided the sharks dont get to us first....lol

Pasir Ris Beach (Part 2)

This is my second part posting of Pasir Ris Beach. Yes, the beach looked lovely with the coconut trees and the sea breeze make strolling on the beach a wonderful experience and relaxing but come low tide the sea is not very plesant looking.... hahaha....

But over at East Coast Beach, the beach looked better (will post photos later) but it is alway crowded during weekends with people cycling, picnic, bbq, etc while Pasir Ris Beach is quietier.

Pasir Ris Beach at low tide.

Guess what these people are doing at low tide? They are digging for worms and use them as baits for their fishing. The background of ships side by side is a ship repairing and building company. More of these ship builders are over at Jurong (west of Singapore). Pasir Ris is on the east side of Singapore.

Pasir Ris Beach

One of the way to relax in Singapore is to go to the beaches. I love going for a stroll or cycle along the beaches. Love the sea breeze and far from the madding crowd in the city. But sad to say we dont have lovely beaches like those overseas.

Well, Singapore used to be the busiest port in the world but is now second after Shanghai, so it is no wonder our sea is not beautiful with so many ships passing by. We can even view some huge cargo ships from our shores (will post a photo to show that in another post.)

Both Photos are taken at Pasir Ris Beach. Some of the popular activities here are cycling, camping and BBQ.