There was a hike proposed of @Hai_Ren on twitter to check out The Green Corridor which is pretty much a railroad track of sorts for the weekend and I signed up along with 2 of the crew. The cast of this episode includes @Hai_Ren as the group organizer, @deafknee, @wilfredphua, @irukafishy, Raven Silvers and Avariel. The weather was sunny as we went off in the morning!

Apparently the Nature Society of Singapore was going on a hike too but they would be from another side of the tracks, heh.

And so this was the start of the trail. We had to go through bushes and shrubbery but there IS somewhat of a foot trail there but it’s not that obvious.

On we went. A good preparation of proper shoes, long pants, a large waterbottle including sunblock and other stuff are needed to get on this hike. We had to climb over fallen trees, duck under branches and other crevices till we found the old track! Bird calls are loud and you can hear them whooping away. Not chirping but you know, the kind where the birds go “WoooOOOo, woooOOooh!”.

Since I have bad macro on my camera, make sure you check out @Hai_Ren’s and @deafknee’s blogs when they post up! They took more pictures of the insects/creatures/plants than me since I took more on landscape.

Halfway through the route, we paused at a point where there was a shallow pond of sorts. It had running water on one end but it was somewhat still except for the pondskaters and other plants. Avariel walked on the railtrack so it looked like she walked on water to get to the tunnel.

Yesss, a tunnel! The train used to go through here but obviously not anymore. At this point, you can hear traffic going past but it is too high up above the tunnel should you try to get attention from anyone.

Ok, to get to the OTHER side of the tunnel was difficult. Make sure you really have good secure shoes on your feet and to KEEP MOVING. You can try walking on the railtrack but still, you’d sink in the mud. This was the point that if you didn’t do it right, you might lose a shoe or get stuck in the mud cause it was past ankle deep.

Of course we managed to get past that. Oddly though, we stumbled upon a group of thirty or so people along the way and ooh-er… It was some sort of group retreat kind of trip but some of them were clearly not looking as if they prepared for a good hike, wearing slippers and such. Nonetheless, they’re all adults there so they should be ok… We warned them of the mud in the tunnels and the trees and stuff to get through along the way.

We passed a river and in this field of grass, dragonflies zipped around everywhere.

Finally we reached the tracks! Yay!

Hurray, hurrah! We all took pictures. Also, you can see Avariel’s Android figurine on the tracks here. It was still a long walk till we reached the station though!

Yaaaay! The Bukit Timah station of Woodlands, Singapore.

I don’t know what this is. What is this? I mean the proper name for it, I have seen it on TV and photos where the station master hands something to one of the train conductors as the train goes by? What is it exactly since it’s not the mailbag. What IS IT?

The sign says it’s from 1967. The switches are still working, I’d think since the lights are still on. Besides, this station will only close in July. The next train would have arrived in an hour or so if we had stuck around.

Under the government of Malaysia. Alas, it will close in July and we won’t really know what will happen to the tracks and everything.

Ah, this is a good look at how my shoes were after all that walking and trudging through mud. The sun dried it since it was much muddier than that! That was the end of the adventure, hurraaah.

As we walked out of the station and towards the main road, we could see the overhead railway track. Currently it is still in use so it would be dangerous to get on it. For those wanting to get to this place before it closes in July, check out The Green Corridor facebook. They’re going to have more walks but their route is definitely much easier to go on.

Like Avariel said as we clambered over obstacles during the hike for our route, “I have never gone through such conditions except in video games”.

The morning started out sunny as can be. We wanted to enjoy ourselves at Forest Adventure. This would have been my fourth time there. I really like Forest Adventure since you get up on the rope courses that are on the tree tops and get around the corner of the reservoir via ziplines.

The weather alarm system went off and after our briefing, we were grounded.

And then it rained insanely.

For those who can’t see… Really, you shouldn’t see anything. In the white distance there is the reservoir and buildings and whatnot. You just can’t see it due to the heavy rain.

Sadness. So we couldn’t go up this time! We did get a refund since we were unable to even start. The others who did start and had gone on, got vouchers instead. So yeah.

An umbrella was pretty useless in that kind of weather since the wind blew hard at us, with horizontal rain etc. We had to wait a few hours before it lessened. There is no way to escape towards the bus stop or to the nearest car park in that weather without getting drenched. Too bad we could not take the short cut through Temasek Poly either because the path way was FLOODED. Alas, we had to take the long way back to civilization! NEXT TIME! WE SHALL DO FOREST ADVENTURE NEXT TIME. I must have my forest adventure! MISSION FAILED FOR NOW. Aborted adventure. Sadness.

Insert time lapse and here we are at Plaza Singapura instead after the downpour. Since that weekend of 18 November was when the Kinect was introduced and being sold at X10, there was a Dance Central audition! Heh, in X09, it was Rock Band.

The ones who qualified on Saturday would make it on Sunday for the finals. Winners get the X box Kinect, Studio Wu lessons and a blu ray home system (not all, but the top prize got that, just minus the amount of prizes to decrease to the third, ok?).

It IS pretty fun! Dance central for Kinect, the contestants were pretty cool too. It seemed you need quite a bit of space to work the kinect camera properly though.

Nonetheless, there were hip hop dancers there and well, wow. They managed to get 5 stars and flawless for Down by Jay Sean featuring Lil Wayne. So blaah, you know who’d get through to the top for Sunday. Anyway, Kinect! Yay! It was fun since demo stations were set up for various games. Unfortunately, the Deathly Hallows one seemed a bit buggy. Oh well.

TO THE NEXT ADVENTURE INDEED!

Ah the Singapore zoo. We went there just the weekend before National Day and a very hot and sunny weekend it was.

No. I’m not exactly sure but uh, they’re tree mascots. Very fantasy-ish in a spirits of the rain forest sense. The cast for this episode is the main crew for the Adventure crew! Raven came a bit later since she had training. In fact, in this episode you might see them in the various pictures. Try to spot them if you can!

And thus we bought our tickets! We didn’t go for the packaged ticket that had the tram and boat ticket rides included. You get a free dollar voucher to one of their restaurants or something and a map of the zoo including a schedule of feeding times and shows happening there.

Looking at the weather, I was glad I was wearing sunscreen but I was more than sure that wasn’t enough so I purchased a hat from the zoo’s store! I AM SO GLAD I bought it! It was freaking sunny and it was worth it having a hat like that. Also, we managed to pull away from buying soft toys there. There’s lot of cute fuzzy stuff and snakes. I like the fuzzy toy snakes.

The first few animals you see as you enter would be the parrots and some tiny monkeys in their special houses near the entrance. The last time I went to the zoo was years ago and now, wow. The place looks awesome. I forget that Singapore’s zoo is one of the best in the world with numerous awards too.

You first start through a tree top boardwalk thing. If you look over the railing, you’ll be able to see some animals swinging about or if you don’t, too bad! It’s ok though since you’ll see more of them later in their own zoo habitats.

Most of us usually went to the zoo during school excursions or thought it was a tourist thing to do. Well for one thing, woah it is very fun visiting the zoo! Sure, you’ll smell the animals before you get to see them but it’s a fun day to be had if you get to see the shows or participate in the feeding times!

What was fun to see besides the animals were the descriptions on them! They were in various languages including braille! Ok, the last one was on the babirusa aka a type of wild boar and not a tapir. I didn’t take the braille version of the tapir’s description but I’m sure it’s there somewhere.

We didn’t get on the boats. Heck, we took one day and we didn’t really do everything at the zoo! You can go through the exhibits and all within a day but if you want to do everything would need a few trips since there’s elephant shows, feeding times and photo opportunities with animals and whatnot. We just did the “land” bits and next year there’ll be more exhibits opening since the pandas will arrive!

As you can see, my hat is very useful that day.

We got to see lots of zones at the zoo. You can actually buy a ticket for the tram, the zookeeper or guides usually talk about the various sights around there when you ride it.

It’s kinda amazing that some animals have free reign in their own zones. The orang utans are free ranging so they’ll really be above you in the trees. You can spot the zookeepers along the pathway either picking up stray branches or carrying some fruits to feed them at times.

Yes.

Orang utans above you.

Randomly, I don’t know if orang utans poo on the ground or while they’re on trees, hmm. Oh yes, as we walked along a lake of sorts we spotted the Ah Meng memorial statue too.

And then we went to Cat Country. HUGE KITTIES. I like lynxes. They have pretty pointy tipped ears. Like elves but furrier and clawier so not like elves at all. The white tigers are at their own enclosures instead of being with the rest of the huge kitties since apparently they’re special or something. Everyone was crowding at the white tiger enclosures anywho.

As you go around the enclosures, you’ll notice that the architecture and themes of the various places where the animals came from is pretty picturisque! There’s no barred gates around, just really well designed open air enclosures. Except for the glass for bits where you want to get “up close” to the animals of course.

The Australian Outback lets you touch young kangaroos! Well, if they bother hopping towards you anyway. The zookeeper is there to keep an eye on the safety of the animals and I guess the children too. You’re not supposed to touch their heads since they don’t like that. That’s what the zookeeper said anyway so you can touch their bodies! There’s a nearby sink for you to wash your hands with soap there too. For any petting areas, there are convenient washing points to be used.

OH YEAH, we fed the giraffes! For $5 you get the stuff from the zookeeper there and then you feed them the carrots. They drooled a bit on Mintea. HURRR. The official zoo photographer is there too. You can buy your photographs at the zoo shop near the entrance. We bought ours because it looked really good! You can only pay via cash or credit card. No NETS for the photograph sets.

The coolest part of the zoo. The polar bear enclosure. They were hanging out in the back instead of swimming because they have a hidden air conditioned lair there and it was a really hot day.

On a different point of temperature scale, there’s an orchid garden too. Make sure you bring loads of water. There are stalls selling drinks and ice cream but eh, you know how prices are at places like these. Oooh yeah, we went for the elephant show! That was fun, if you want to be chilled out, sit at the front because they’re gonna splash you with water! Ho ho.

Meanwhile, considering this was before the Ramadhan fasting month, we pitstop at KFC at the Kids zone. Prepare to wait a while before you can buy your food since there’s a long queue. Considering this was a weekend, naturally it is busy. However since it is now the fasting month perhaps it’ll be quieter? I don’t know.

Anyway, there’s a carousel, pony petting/feeding sessions and a water playground! Lots of kids running around. Make sure you really have sunscreen on. It was as if you could feel the burn of the sun.

BUT WHAT IS THIS? Hidden in the “old” part of Kids zone is a flying fox! Naturally we took tons of pictures as we swung on them.

We took the Dino Walk and followed the trailed to see what was in store. Yeah, I’m so using such cliche “adventure” discovery lines right now. So yes, there are dinosaurs at the zoo.

THE TRAIL IS SO FUN. There are hidden adventury obstacle things if you wanted to play on them. This one is especially fun. You get your team and stand on it and pull yourselves across the mini lake. It is not deep but I doubt you want to get wet legs or fall in it. Do it, do iiiiit if you’re in the Kids zone, through the Dino walk and deep into the bushes to find this!

As we exited the zoo, we looked up to see the little poster banners. Heh, Mio and Okto eh? Well, the animals in the zoo are adopted by various brands. For example, the white tigers are adopted by Tiger beer. No prizes on who adopted the parrots Mio and Okto.

Hello everyone! Today is Singapore’s National Day! So instead, I shall leave you with our episode at the istana! Yes! Where the president works! The istana holds days for open houses and the day before National Day is one of them! You can usually check their website to see the dates for when you can visit them. So yes, this time we went to the istana open house!

It’s free for Singaporeans and permanent residents. Tourists and foreigners will have to pay $1 to get in. Oh yes, to get free entry you need to show your identity card if you’re SGian or PR. It was fast enough for us since we went during lunch time. The security check was really fast since we just put our bags on the trays and went through the metal detector. Don’t bring too much unnecessary stuff since woah, when you get into the istana area, you’ll find it a very large piece of land. It would be a very tiring walk if you were lugging a lot of things.

For one thing, once you step in the grounds, you’ll realize that it is freaking huge! The istana is nowhere close to the gates! Prepare to walk a lot from here. It is said from one of our adventurers who knows someone working there, to get to the main building, the person would be driven on a golf buggy! That was certainly sensible and there were a few parked around near the gate building and also some being used by the police to go around that day.

Yep. Golf buggies are the way to go around here. In any case, bring lots of water too. There were families picnicking and school children on an excursion there.

The first thing we did was to disturb the swans. Well, not really. They’re at the pond with a very good cordoned off from the public with just a bit of a rope railing thing. You don’t want people to fall into the pond anyway. It is said that sometimes the swans will go a wandering around. Also, there is a huge tortoise somewhere but we don’t know where it is. That tortoise is also said to wander quite a bit and the staff has to carry it back to the pond somehow.

Imagine the security police surrounding said tortoise and going all “Freeze tortoise! You’re in a restricted area! Go back to your pond!” or something. Le amusement. It IS a huge pond by the way and there’s also a lake. To be specific, 2 ponds and 1 lake.

The grass and architecture of the place was pretty pretty. Very colonial style anyway. The best way was to go up, UP!

And diagonally really. We went up and walked under the shady path and then walked into the sun to check out the art pieces made by students from 43 schools while the art installation itself is by NUS. At least that’s what it says in the pamphlet!

There were activities you could do that day too! Children were going around trying to get their kites that they made up in the air. It was mostly us moving away from their running around with a trailing kite on the ground though. Still, they did have fun.

There’s a stage set up where performances were to be had or you could just sit there to rest in the shade. There’s a lot of playgrounds set up too along with a stall selling ice cream. We’ll get to the activities later, we still wanted to go reach to the main building aka the istana! You can see it behind the canon there.

Alright, we passed by Victoria pond. We didn’t want to go down because it is a long way down and we were at the junction where we’d either go straight to the istana or go down to see the Queen’s statue. Fun fact, this statue was originally inside the istana, at the presidential hall until it was moved to the pond.

Almost to the istana! The greenery and flowers are so pretty there.

But hold on! If you want to go inside it, you’ll have to pay $2! The ticket proceeds go to charity anyway so it’s all good. Also, no photography allowed inside. However, if you were researching for a story or whatever, the interior is so very nice to check out. Also, we love the air conditioning. The architecture is a mix of old and new. They didn’t mess with the colonial structure of the building even though electrical lights and whatnot were installed. Oh right, why do we love the air conditioning? They’re actually set in large wooden cabinets that look like tables but have shutters on top. This was much better than an air conditioning machine installed in the wall or something.

Also, we stuck around the cabinets to cool our faces. Haaa.

You get to walk around the first level of the istana and go ooh at the various artwork. It’s not that many places but it is just the experience to say you’ve been there! Some police or members of the force are around wearing their ceremonial version of their uniforms. I don’t know what “number” uniform it is but it’s the fancy ones with the gold braids along the shoulders with proper pants or skirts indeed.

Since we aren’t allowed to take pictures inside, have the exterior instead! Also, if you haven’t guessed or figured it out, istana means palace. The president works here and oh the all red flag with our crescent moon and five stars? It’s the presidential standard where it will be up there while he works and will be lowered down when he leaves the istana. We didn’t get to see the president that day although he does come out to meet people but the day before was the Youth Olympic Games torch passing through thing and then the next day from this open house would be National Day (aka the day of this post). I’d think the president would be busy then.

Alright, off to the other side where the fountain is! I like it how there’s chandeliers on top of the tent structure’s. So posh.

And onwards we went towards the activities area! If you won’t go to the museums, the museums will come to you!

Ok. The zoo isn’t a museum but woah. The whole village is like flashback city! We’ve gone to their main buildings in our episodes! Ok. You haven’t seen it yet but we went to the zoo the week before this post. You’ll read that in the next episode, probably. Oh and there’s another pony there too. It’s probably pettable if you asked the zookeeper there.

Ok. The library isn’t a museum either but they’re usually at events nowadays with related books or DVDs etc! You can borrow stuff there and win items.

This was also where you could get the kites and other things to make. I’m sure I could make the snake easily. This was by the Peranakan or Asian Civilizations Museum. One of them anyway since both were there so in any case, they’re all together for this village.

Remember the pamphlet I got earlier? On the front was a coupon to get freebies! Yay! I heart museums! I do! It’s free entry today and you can check the various days you can get into the main museums in Singapore for free. Usually we just check online on their calendars to see.

Before you leave the istana grounds, you can buy a souvenir or two. There were cups and things which I didn’t really take a good look at. All of the monies go to the community chest/charity though anyway.

Off we go! Back out or rather to Plaza Singapura to eat. By the time we walked through the grounds, we really needed a cool drink and food since we didn’t have lunch.

Goodbye to being up close to the istana gates! Unless you get invited in, work there or go to another open house. Also, amusing is that we do have guards at the guard posts. People were taking pictures next to them since they can’t move or aren’t allowed to anyway. Oh le sad, on open houses they get their pictures taken by random people who pose next to them. Hahahah.

Happy 45th birthday Singapore. The winning artwork for National Day 2010 on Google on this day is up! Heh, I voted for that design too.

As for those who don’t know what’s the Song for Singapore, that’s this year’s theme song. My favourite though is Home by Kit Chan from 2004.

Ps. By the time we got out of Plaza Singapura, the line to get into the istana was FROM Plaza Singapura. Well, the walkway there towards the istana anyway. Yay for us not getting when the crowd was entering.

After threatening rain from the previous few days, we decided to heck it and just get on with the picnic. This time, the weather didn’t cheat our feelings. Yessss. Picnickers included: Raven Silvers, Mintea, Joelyn Alexandra and Avariel. Thus, we headed off to the Marina Barrage! Considering there’s still construction going on, we couldn’t just walk there from the Marina Bay MRT station and had to take a bus.

You have to walk a bit to find the bus stop though.

The bus (either the shuttle bus or the normal SBS one) will stop near the entrance of the barrage. You’ll see water features there if you couldn’t tell it was the Marina Barrage already.

And you had to walk in some more. It’s a wide open space and somehow on that day, there was some sort of school children event happening.

There’s a male version on the other side carrying something but I liked this female sculpture cause it looked like she was in motion, swinging the globe away.

We finally chose a spot under the shade yet far away enough from the water where the children were playing in.

Hohoho, ok in the end we brought too much food? That’s just one part for our agenda of the day. Our second was to go kiting! That’s why we needed a non-rainy day without lightning!

As we went up, we saw this and went all “What the…ship?”. There was going to be some family day with movies at as a theme the next day or so according to the preparations and posters around the place.

We made it up the spiral ramp thing to get to the top of the Marina Barrage. You’re only allowed to kite up there it seems. Make sure you wear lots of sunblock or have a huge floppy hat or something. It’s very sunny and hot there. My thermometer on my bag said it went around 30 degrees Celsius up there.

Even though it was hot, it was really windy so that was good. There’s a shop selling kites by the ramp too. Mintea and Raven bought the cheapest one there ($13) because their own plastic kites somewhat ripped/broke. The ones they got were cloth ones with sturdy lines. I used mine from the time I went to International Kite Day.

We didn’t spend TOO much time up there. It was freaking hot. Since we were at the barrage, we went to the exhibit area. You can get a tour but that costs money, I think. Anyway it was more about how they filtered the water and also how we must save nature etc, etc.

Mostly, we enjoyed the air conditioner inside there.

There was also a miniature demonstration of how the barrage worked! We were muchly amused by this… I’m sure you could tell from the audio.

It was pretty fun inside there, besides learning more about water and nature around Singapore, there were interactive things to touch and play around with. We got an e-postcard sent to ourselves from there. There’s a green screen background thing and you click to take a picture where you can choose the background to be the Marina Barrage.

Yes.

I know it’s a bit redundant when we took pictures at the actual barrage and could get a better version but still, it was fun.

We got out of there to exit from a secret passage way that opened up into a cafe. Good use of marketing, I think? Oh yes, you can buy tiny plushies or souvenirs of the mascot! I can’t remember his name but he’s a happy water droplet that doesn’t want you to waste water!

And that was the end of the picnic/kiting adventure.

Finally, we managed to strike picnic off the list with the unpredictable weather we were having lately!

The weather was a bit unpredictable yet by the time we waited for everyone to arrive at Khatib MRT station, the rain had stopped. So hurrah! The players for that afternoon were Mintea, Avariel and Raven Silvers. I had been meaning to go to Bottle Tree Park ever since I kept seeing their url from within the train. Really, their sign is in one of the best locations for people to see since if you’re in the train, you can see this from the window!

VIDEO SUMMARY/TRAILER:

Yes, this is what we did. On with the show!

It was a 10 minute walk from the station. That included us cam-whoring and stuff so it’ll probably be faster if you just walked there without pausing every now and then taking random pictures and dodging bicycles or whatever.

One of the first things we saw when we got inside. There’s also the large pond thing which you could see from the first picture when you over look the whole area too.

Our mission for getting there in the first place: TO PRAWN! For those who can read Chinese, note the pun. For those who can’t read (like me, since I was informed by my friend) that it says come back again but the pun involves it being a prawn… Ok nevermind, explaining puns is saaad. ANYWHO, it’s $14.50 for one hour. You can check their rates on their website anyway.

When people asked what my adventure was for the week, I told them I was going prawning and they all paused for a few seconds wondering what I meant. You know, to fish is going fishing so to prawn is going prawning?

So anywho, we got our bait thankfully Avariel has gone prawning before since her sister taught her how to do it. She prawns at the farm near Pasir Ris area, that one you need a car or some taxi to get to. Anyway, she showed us how to put the bait onto our hooks and to make sure our floaties uh, float. If they dip down, a prawn might be nibbling at your bait!

So we pretty much sat around talking about Pokemon and how easy it was to catch stuff in the game than in real life. It was in the midst of taking pictures that I felt a tug and then all of us went all “OMGOMGOMGOMG” because it’s the first one (and only one) that I caught.

Avariel helped unhook the prawn for me because we were all “AAAH! AAAH! WHAT DO WE DO NOW?!” since it was flinging around and stuff on the line. First though, she broke the claw off, I DIDN’T KNOW PRAWNS HAD CLAWS. And then she put it into the basket thingy that was near the water. Mind you, if you do this, do NOT let your prawn free for it won’t be able to defend itself? So what you catch, eat it!

Eventually, our hour was up and we caught a prawn each (minus 1). I’ll let you read everyone else’s blogs to figure out who didn’t catch it! BWUAHAHAHA. But anyway yeah, there’s a sink there to wash the prawns and a mini grill so you could cook it! The only confusing thing was that THE STAFF KEPT SPEAKING CHINESE TO US! I mean, they’re the uncle-y older sort so ok, luckily Avariel could sorta understand what he was saying cause Raven couldn’t much and Mintea and I had no clue either.

I mean, sure normal conversations we could possibly understand but we don’t really know much about prawning conversations. So we got to eat our catch! We kinda stood around holding it up like lollipops but not, cause they’re freaking prawns and they were too hot to peel off yet.

Meanwhile, the place actually has a Ladies’ Night on Thursday evenings! A 1 for 1 deal if you’re a lady and bringing another lady along. I don’t know the whole dating scene would be like at a pond though when everyone wants to catch prawns to eat. I guess you could always do the whole “Oh MY, I HAVE CAUGHT A PRAWN. However do I unhook it?” and do this repeatedly like 10 times or something with every prawn you catch.

Still, I DID think of a situation where it goes like this:

You: Hey, it’s Thursday and it’s ladies’ night. Wanna go with me some place fun?

Some lady friend: Cool! I’ma show up!

CUT SCENE LATER THAT EVENING AT THE POND.

Lady friend in super bling clubbing gear holds a prawning pole while sitting on the chair with a “I can’t believe this” look on her face with you sitting next to her.

YOU: ISN’T THIS FUN?

THAT WOULD BE SO INTERESTING IF IT HAPPENED. But anywho back to reality. Other people there caught more prawns than us and thus, we’re just kinda lame at prawning or it’s just our luck. Still, freshly grilled prawns are very woah! Woah in the sense of delicious and drippy.

Since we travelled all the way to the park, we checked out the place. It’s pretty big actually but slightly quiet since it had been a rainy day.

Besides prawning, there was actually sport fishing. There was also something about practicing catch and release there too but oh well, if you’re doing this, THERE IS NO GRILL FOR YOU. Bring some cooler box or something if you’re wanting to go fishing for the day there.

Alright, so we rounded to the other side of the park. As we went up the hill, we saw this. Heh, heh, what ever could it be?

It’s a paintball range! I couldn’t take pictures of the obstacle course because we were hanging in front of the main entrance and one of the staff of Red Dynasty saw us lurking about and handed us flyers. He did a little intro and ha, obviously we didn’t go all, “LA! WE ARE MERE DAMSELS! SUCH WEAPONRY IS BEYOND OUR KNOWLEDGE!”.

Because that would be silly.

And I doubt we’d say that anyway.

Since there’s only like 4 of us and a minimum of 6 to play a game (besides the fact that we weren’t suited up for one), we took the shooting range package which was $10 for 30 balls each. We got a bit more than 30 though cause the staff guy said we were girls. Not in a condescending way but more of a “You look new here” kind of way and we were interested in bring others here as we… loudly commented. I think he might have put in more than 30 cause he might have miscounted or something when he loaded the hopper with the balls.

BUT WHATEVER, all the more to us!

What we did notice was this gun (or if you’re a paintball snob, you would call this a marker) shoots differently than the one at the Singapore Discovery Centre. For one thing, the balls shoot in a projectile curved way. Like how you bat a ball away while the SDC’s Crossfire paintball gun has a more impactful air loaded marker which shoots straight. Thus, it’s just a bit less painful here and we checked the prices. It’s cheaper. So up to you which you’d like. I’d like BOTH actually! They have their own plus points!

Shots done, we said good bye to them and told them we’d come another time…

With more people.

BWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Ps. We’d want the Darth Vader package if it’s still around then if you check out the website.

Early morning, she wakes up… Knock, knock, knock on the door… Ok, maybe not but for this episode, Mintea and I headed off to Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve from Marsiling MRT! We took a bus since we wanted to get there to get the (FREE!) guided tour that was on at 9.30am every Saturday.

Unfortunately, we had no idea that once the bus did a weird reverse U turn thing, it was the last stop before it went back on the route towards Marsiling once more. We stopped two bus stops away from our correct stop cause… We were kinda like !!! wondering what to do since we missed our stop. Bus 925 apparently only turns in towards the reserve on Sundays and public holidays.

It’s cool, we were early so we walked all the way to the reserve which is a pretty far off secluded thing. I have to say, either you don’t go alone or you really have to get a taxi, the shuttle bus or some transport there. Other wise, if you’re walking in, get someone else to be with you because the route is really secluded and there can be packs of dogs loitering around. You’ll see what I mean later.

Morchoo and Titoy are the mascots of the Kranji Countryside. Pretty much the whole area with the farm stuff and wetland reserves. It’s very naturey here. If you see them, know that you’re still a long way before you get to the reserve.

We crossed the road and recrossed it again because there was a dog on the other side and did a little zig zag thing before ending up at the entrance. We went all yay over it of course since it was a very long walk there! Also it meant we didn’t get lost, hurrah! You still have to walk more to get to the actual Sungei Buloh wetland reserve.

Considering it was morning and that it was a Saturday, it was quite surprising to see lots of people too! However, I noticed most of the people were from school excursions or tour groups. Or oh, photographers with huge lenses and camouflage things on them. Like the really huge medium format cameras or something too!

We paid for our tickets, it’s $1. It’s free if you come on a weekday. You only have to pay on weekends or public holidays. It’s just 50 cents for children, students or senior citizens. We looked around since we were still early even if we walked all the way there. There were exhibits like the time we went to Bukit Timah about the nature life that would be found in the reserve. There’s a theatrette there too with show screenings but we didn’t go to that.

9.30 am and off we went with the volunteer guides! Our guides for the day were SK, an elderly sort of lady and Robbie, a teenage boy with an interest in nature. I don’t know, this is my second time at reserves with volunteer guides and both times they’re very funny besides being informative? Much amusement in any case.

Oh yes, we bought a guide too at the info counter, it’s pretty useful considering it’s just $2 and it had the map of the whole area including information about what birds and other creatures you’d find at the reserve. The place is mostly flat and not hilly as Bukit Timah (obviously) so it’s a good walking trail to get around.

We learned plants like the sea poison tree and that it was used in the past by fishermen as they’d grind the leaves into a paste and throw them into the sea. The poison would then kill the fishes in the area and off they scooped them up to eat them! The interesting thing about this sea poison plant is that it would be neutralized if you cooked the fish properly!

We also found a Pokemon too. Heh, heh. The bin covers are all painted on.

Now, when you walk on the tracks you might notice to one side is the sea while the other side is the wetlands of the reserve. Obviously, there’s no railings so don’t teeter off to any of the sides and fall in! They’ve got a dam system thingy that I forgot what the proper word is for to have the water flow from the sea to the other side or the other way round if they want to balance it out. So it’s pretty cool to be walking in between them. EDIT: Mintea said the thing is called a sluice gate!

It was said during one year with the major storms, the whole trail was covered with at least 6 inches of water so that meant it was cool in a very scary way that you could technically be swept to sea!

I wondered to post up some pictures of birds and insects and spiders but figured that some of you guys might freak out at the spiders especially. So have two birds instead! I forgot what the green one is named and the sea chicken is actually edible if you can catch it. The guide told us it’s not endangered but it’s pretty quick so you probably couldn’t get it anyway. It’s sold in Malaysia though and she said that she was told that the meat is very sweet.

Soon, we said goodbye to the guides once we reached the point of taking whatever route we wanted. We headed to the aerie instead since we were there anywho! You could see Malaysia from there and by then our phones were on Malaysia’s telecom systems instead of Singapore.

We were told there were 3 things that if you were lucky, you’d see at the reserves. They were the monitor lizards, the crocodiles and a family of otters! We saw the monitor lizards, they were pretty much everywhere and well, we were told we missed the family of otters by another visitor since they were near the pond of the visitor centre when we left off on our tour.

That left the crocodiles.

We didn’t see any. We wouldn’t really know what to do if we saw them in our paths anyway. Though, I kept thinking of if it were Lara Croft, she would kick it in the face. Which would be highly horrible for both parties since the crocodiles shouldn’t be kicked and I don’t want my shoes to be eaten anywho.

We left the aerie and wondered if we should continue to check out the other routes or go back to the visitor centre. Mintea then started to trip over something and we agreed that was a sign for us to get back.

Which was good really, as we got some ice cream to sit at the cafe area, it started to rain! A short drizzle but still, it was good we went back in time. And then, as we walked out of the cafe and so I could buy a guide book, we paused.

Um, ok. Get along with you! AND THEN, Robbie semi ran past us to tell us that they were there at the pond!

OTTERS! THEY KEPT ROLLING ON THE GROUND CUTELY. What you don’t see in this picture is that on the right was a monitor lizard just sitting there, sunning itself. I cropped it off to focus on the otters here. It’s like, if the monitor lizard flees, then the crocodile might be near so the otters just KEPT ON ROLLING AND ROLLING LIKE AAAAH. And then the children from some family day thingy went all squee and everyone and their teachers told them to hush or else they’d run away!

SO YAY! 2/3 lucky things to see there. I still don’t know what to do if we were faced with the crocodile. The warning documentation tells visitors to walk away calmly though and to call on staff if it happens but still. YOU CAN NEVAH KNOW.

So we left after that and decided to walk back out towards the bus stop once more. ONLY TO STOP IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. When I said we were trying to avoid dogs, they aren’t the cute little pet doggies. There were stray random wild dogs besides the ones that the farms had.

This pack looked very daunting to pass and I had been reading a werewolf story by Patricia Briggs so I kept thinking “THE PACK, THE PAAACK. WHO IS THE ALPHA AND OMEGA?”. It was Cry Wolf if you want to check it out, by the way.

So we went back to the reserve, trying to call for a cab when I noticed on the schedule that we didn’t miss the shuttle bus! Or rather, there was another timing and we waited for that one instead.

So hurray! We got on the shuttle bus and back to civilization! The scenery when you pass by this part of Singapore is really nice too but sad, you can’t get into some places since they’re restricted! That’s the end of the Sungei Buloh adventure. There’s lots of birds there but it depended on your skill to spot them as they camouflage really well!

Past the urban jungle of Singapore, lies nature (relatively) untouched. There, our adventure crew for the weekend headed into Bukit Timah nature reserve for their guided walk by the park volunteers! It happens every 3rd Saturday of the month and it’s totally free, unless you’re in a large class group or something then you’d have to pay for the excursion. Meanwhile, this episode’s co-stars include: Joelyn Alexandra, Raven Silvers and Avariel. (Mintea guest stars in the later part of this post.)

We were to meet at least by 9.15am because the guided tour started at 9.25am. I was early however, reaching there at 9am so I set up my camera to check which settings would be best to use. Unlike normal days, I was using a DSLR this time cause I wanted some pictures of nature for some competition I needed. With that said, haaaaa. I didn’t put in my best shots in this post because I would be using those for the competition. Oh, if you’re wanting to go on a guided tour around the parks and all, just go to the Nparks website and check the info there, you need to call them up to register.

Anyway, what was surprising because it was a weekend morning and there were numerous people with hiking sticks that I had no idea where they got them from walking around from the carpark area into the nature reserve. I thought it would have been a quiet and “ulu” place to go to but apparently it’s pretty popular. On the other side of the visitor centre is some track route for mountain bikers so that was cool seeing people in gear getting ready to ride up the bumps and stuff.

If you don’t know the general rules of the place, it pretty much is leave nothing but footsteps and take nothing but pictures. And oh, don’t feed the monkeys. There’s loads of monkeys around so don’t disturb them and they won’t disturb you.

Don’t feed theeeeem. They have enough food in the forest without people feeding junk to them.

Oh yeah, near the visitor centre, I saw this. Bonus points achieved if you get to see this in my various posts or locations! They’re markers for historical events in Singapore. I can’t remember how many of them are there in total but they’re there! There’s a list somewhere, I think. This one is the battle for Bukit Timah.

Anyway, the rest arrived pretty early and so we went up the exhibition hall to look at the stuff there. It’s pretty much a little info centre where you get to read about nature’s products and what past adventurers did at Bukit Timah in the past when there were tigers and all that.

Try to spot a fake owl on the tree if you can but pretty much this section showed what wildlife was there in the past. I’m sure there’s still owls and the such at the nature reserve… Just no more tigers. After wasting enough time up there, we headed back down to find the rest who have registered for the walk. There were two groups and we went with Anne, an experienced volunteer guide for the reserve.

She pretty much showed us which trees and plants were what that surrounded the visitor centre and we made our way on the green route, up on the hill. There’s also the red, yellow and blue route. The green route is the easiest.

Anyway, we saw lots of stuff including lizards, spiders, bugs and all sorts of creatures. It is best to go on the standard routes because the reserve is actually that dense and you’re not to actually break/trample on these plants and such. Don’t be naughty and break a branch or decide to take a fruit or two cause those things are for the animals to eat.

Fun fact, you might find one of the tallest trees in the forest (there’ll be a sign/nameplate near it) and at the back of it, there’s safety lightning conductor rods to direct it away from the tree during a storm. We also learned that if the cicadas stop singing, hurry to a shelter because that means there will be rainfall and you totally don’t want to be out in the rain when branches could fall down at any time.

Anywho, after the educational guide which taught us which plants were what and the history of the reserve itself, Anne left us at the mid point of the hill where we are welcomed to choose any of the routes or to just head downwards to go back to the visitor centre. We said goodbye to her and decided that since we were there, we might as well get to the top!

Oooh, considering we weren’t close to any buildings and the electrical interferencess, Raven told us her compass app finally worked properly! Not that we really needed it but it was cool to know it worked.

Eventually, we made our way up! For those who played Tomb Raider: Underworld, you will find the “short cut” to the top pretty similar to the game in the first few levels because the steps are pretty high. We took the long route to the top which was a winding path, passing by people with baby strollers and the such. It was a long walk and we ran away from various butterflies, bees flying at us.

And yet, once we reached the top, you can notice the (abandoned??) phone/radio tower thingies. I think they’re in use though because then Raven’s iPhone had difficult in connecting anything. Compare to the first pic and to this, you can tell how high we were up in a way.

And after a rest… Going downwards was the hardest part. UNNGH, our thighs were achey by the time we reached downwards. We took the shortcut which would have been more tiring for us to go up to instead of down. It was kinda scary too because it really was that steep. This is the part that was totally like those levels on Lara Croft, only without the shooting of acid poison spitting Nagas, bats flying out of nowhere and without the jaguars attacking you.

So hurray! That was fun! We might go again and check out the other routes. After that though, we went to Al Amin to eat and heck, yeah it’s like we replace the calories we lost by eating lots of stuff like cheese prata, mee goreng with Milo drinks and all. Next stop, we needed to meet Mintea as I wanted to pass her some t-shirts she ordered online! I hmmed for a bit and figured the one place which was a good meeting point in the city.

Oh heck yes, we cam whored a bit there in front of the Singapore Arts Museum. In fact, before we did so, people were just passing by and looking curiously. When we started our own mini photoshoot, other people wanted to do so too, so that was cool.

GUESS WHO MADE IT! It’s by Vertical Submarine! We totally love their stuff, only we don’t know their contacts so if anyone knows, send me an email and all. We want to nominate them for NAC’s Young Artists Award under visual arts if we can. I say “if we can” because there’s details in the nomination form that can seem stalkerish if you’re a random person who wants to nominate whoever you want to be part of the list. You might also remember from here that we went to see Vertical Submarine’s side of the exhibition at SAM too.

We met Mintea and passed her the stuff but then decided to head to the National Library to do some research over some book things. In line with the day’s theme of conservation and natury stuff, it was interesting to see an exhibition there about recycling and all that save the Earth things! We saw something… That we wanted to try out though.

SEGWAAAAAAAAAY! We got to ride a Segway once we signed the indemnity forms. It was a slow ride for all of us because we were leaning slowly and following the instructor. It’s the new version where the wheels can go on rough terrain. It would be so cool if I had one… ANYWAY, that’s the end of this post. The rest of the day had to do with book research and then off we went home.