MacRitchie Reservoir

Not just another recce session but the recce session to MacRitchie Reservoir.

Depending on your physical conditioning and sense of adventure, there are ~5 different tracks for you to choose from. Being a self profess fit and adventurous guy, I have decided to choose the longest ~11+KM track which is touted as "moderately" challenging.

As the weather has been relatively good (few clusters of cloud but not raining), I have set off with just a small bottle of water. The initial concrete path soon vanishes and without any warning, I have started to walked on the muddy track. It takes a while to get used to the humid but once you have overcome this, the journey is pretty much easy.

The best part of taking a walk here is the ability to get up close to nature and I thoroughly enjoyed this relax and "scenic" route.

After walking for ~2hrs, I finally reached the HSBC Tree Top Walk. Though I am suppose to be on top of the trees canopy, somehow I felt the trees are pretty grown up as I could not have a good view around.

It takes about the same time to walk back and immediately I am looking forward to explore another track which is touted as "moderate / difficult" challenging.

Family Pictures over the weekend.....

Punggol views before it is gone....

Before (2007)....................................................Now (2009)

It has been 2 years since I ventured back to the same location and it is visible that things has changed. The above pictures shows the growth that has been happening during this period of time.

This trip back to Punggol with my pals seems different!

I remember vividly back then, this was a very deserted place. It was a miracle if you find someone venturing around this place. However as a progress for another 2 years, this place has been injected by more colours and life. During the 2hrs+ stay here, I could see fisherman-wannabes, photographers, hikers, wakeboarders and scramble-bikers..... you have to be here to see this!

As I tracked deeper into the Punggol End, some interesting "pond" could be seen. This was well hidden and blends into the nearby greenery/forested areas. Usually this scene could only be found in other countries or nature parks..... it was a pleasant surprise to me. The water at the "pond" was pretty clear and I could see the bottom of the "pond"....much to my surprise

Track through such terrain....................................The "Pond".......................

All these activities of photographing, trekking and searching for "ponds" excites me it co-exist with the housing estate and are triving with lots of life in it. However while travelling further into this mystic world, I soon realised the sad fact that in the name of modernisation, this place will soon be transformed into a "grand" housing estate.

You could see from the pictures below where construction work has began by deepening of the river and laying the foundation for bridges. The waters around it was very very brownish and it looks kind of scary....... very contrasting from the earlier "pond"!

With a tinge of sadness, I hope the new development here will be able to blend into the nature instead of destroying everything God has given and provide. God bless!

Marina Barrage

Tiredness tends to affect my body after 10pm. However the trip to Marina Barrage seems to delay this effect as I could feel the cool breeze gashing pass me. I stayed pretty much awake throughout the night.

To my surprise, though the restaurant was closed, there were many people hanging around there, families, couples and friends of friends. This place seems crowded!

OK OK... not much people around here as I have waited for a long while to shot this picture ... :-)

The view on top of the Marina Barrage was breathtaking! On the left was the upcoming Casino and across to the river, you could see the Singapore Flyer standing tall shining with nice colours wrapped around it!

I suspect it was pretty cold that night which causes some fogging in the air as the pictures were not as sharp as it should be! I have ruled out other possibility like my "skills" and others as I always considered myself as an above average photographer...... ;-P

From the above picture, the left side is the reservoir while the right side is the sea

The view towards the bridge across Marina South and Marine Parade is something unique, never have I thought that this is possible to close a big river and to transform this into a big reservoir! This is indeed a true visionary and masterplanning piece of work in action.

Chinese Lunar New Year

This year's Chinese Lunar New Year celebration has been a mellow one. I have decided to change from previous year by keeping it simple celebrating this only with my buddy Ricky and family members.

The first day has been very tiring as I have to visited 4 different groups of relatives and have hosted the last portion with Ricky, Matthias (god son) and family.

Luckily it was not that difficult as the kids are glued to the WII games.

---------------------------------- (End of Day 1) ----------------------------------

The next day started early as well. We reached Sentosa for the Flower Festival before the official opening timing time of 9am. Found out that we have to pay extra due to this too.... :-(

Nevertheless we took several family pictures to kick start the visit.

Some pictures taken at Sentosa.... as we are early there and it was very cloudy, phototaking is a relatively easy task during then.

One of my favorite family pictures .....

Wondered around too much and ended up walking from Beach Station to Rasa Sentosa Hotel (feels like 2-3km) ...... missing the actual flower festival route! Took a hasty retreat using Sentosa feeder bus as we are tired by now and after a quick study of the Sentosa map, we have stopped at Imbian Station to continue the flower festival route.

By the time we reached Imbian Station (close to 12pm), crowds of visitors could be seen everywhere and some patience is required to have a decent picture taken.

We felt that the flowers displayed at the Imbian Station was very nice; nicer than those displayed at the beach as there are grouped closer together in many different themes, hence giving us the feeling that we are in a huge garden filled with many different variety of flowers.

Will definitely go again next year!