Friday, January 31, 2020

Singapore Botanic Garden, 2

Continuing our day in the Singapore Botanic Garden...
Huge lily pads


















More big trees and aerial roots
























Us behind a waterfall

So it turns out the ginger family is quite large and important



Bananas, even tiny hobbit bananas like these, are of the ginger
family










































Now entering the orchid garden


Hundreds of specimens, I'd guess



Orchid-loving Vicki


Many arches all around

Not the Labernum Arch at Bodnant; but not bad

And neither Bodnant nor Kew have water monitors

Nor lowland jungle scenes

Impressive place!

Singapore: Botanic Garden, 1

We like botanical gardens and rarely miss them wherever we go. Search botanical gardens worldwide and Singapore's invariably appears at or near the top of the list. It is definitely a cut below Kew IMHO--given the climate, it is pretty strictly tropical--but the Singapore Botanical Garden is nonetheless impressive. Hundreds of acres in the middle of the great city. We spent nearly the whole day there, doing the lowlands gardens, the rain forest, the fragrance garden, the medicinal plants, the ginger garden, and the orchid garden, among others, knowing that we'd also visit Singapore's Gardens by the Bay, whose two enormous glass houses cover much of the rest of the botanical world.


But of course

Interestingly, right here in the middle of a city of 5-6 million, there are water
monitors in the Botanic Garden; we saw several

Much else going on

Signage excellent; and in English too (one of Singapore's four official languages)

Eve's Apple

Ming Aralias, a former favorite, of which I've owned several

Signage in the medicinal plants area (click to enlarge)

No seeds or cuttings from the toxic garden

Not a handkerchief tree (as in the UK)

Happy New Year at the visitor center

Interesting bucket list map in the main gift shoppe

Gorgeous water features everywhere

Aerial roots everywhere; a tropical thing

Now on the rain forest walk

Big trees here and there

And big leaves; I'd estimate these to be 2' x 4'; Rhapis Palms
on the left, another plant I collected back in the pre-Montana
days; a common indoor and outdoor landscaping plant in
Singapore

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Singapore: Chinatown, 2

Continuing our walking tour of Chinatown, and then some...
Main hall of the Buddha tooth relic temple; monks tending the display; the silk
embroidery is the background

More high-rises

Now in a civic center, the best model ever, so far, showing the entire island/city/
state, in detail; Collin explaining the government's growth/environmental plans

Detail, showing the Marina Bay area, where we'll spend some time...

Most of the tour then adjourned to the Maxwell Food Centre,
across the street, one of the better known hawker centers

Where we tried the famous chicken rice dish (famous for its blandness? I asked)

From this place

Being a fan of the early Bourdain (when he still smoked), I couldn't resist the
oyster beignet

"Where's the oyster?"


Oh, there, with the pork and mushroom, etc.


A bit of the interior of the Maxwell Food Centre


Among the hawkers

After our hawker center experience, we continued walking around Chinatown


 

Peanut gallery


Done with scissors, not just silhouettes

Making bakwa, a flattened grilled pork New Year specialty; we'd be back in
Chinatown on New Year's eve...