Tag: jurong lake gardens

The Grasslands in The Park

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A visit to a park possibly furthest away from home in the entire of Singapore has been in the pipeline for the past month, but our plan had been thwarted several times due to inclement weather and last-minute recall to work. Finally on this day, we managed to make a short trip (albeit long drive, by local standards) to the new national gardens. At 90 hectares upon completion, Jurong Lake Gardens will be even larger than Singapore Botanic Gardens. Imagine that!

The mister proclaimed that it has been raining in the mid-mornings the past few days, so he planned that we wake up early and target to arrive at the gardens before 7am in order to avoid any weather. We drove almost 40 minutes before daybreak to reach Jurong expecting the park to be close to empty, only to be sorely wrong. It was eye-opening to learn that so many health enthusiasts like to exercise very early in the morning.

We headed to The Grasslands first, and came across several mounds. Got the girls to mount one, which they happily did and stayed for the vantage view that satiated their curiosity. Belle and Cassie were so busy looking at the joggers, strollers and cyclists they barely heard us when we called out to them.

‘Tis was a very strange morning – Cassie was much more receptive to being photographed than Belle, which… never happened in the past. Must be my lucky day that she was in an obliging mood.

Cassie was a full-fledged busybody on the walk. A golden retriever walked by with its owner and she was curiously following its path with her eyes. How adorable! I bet if we had let her off-leash, she would have run off to make friends with that golden retriever. Reminds me of how her trainer told us this girl would easily be the life of a party given how she wanted to be friends with everyone in her obedience class. And back then she was only a 4-month old puppy! 😛

That morning, the girls have experienced walking on all sorts of terrain: concrete, grass, gravel, mud and sand. Belle and Cassie are generally very fastidious about cleanliness and they are not so used to walking on gravel. Both girls challenged the terrain with much gutso, to my surprise.

My newest favourite picture of my three beloved.

We’ve only managed to explore The Grasslands in the short hour we had before it started pouring. It was enough to let us have a taste of what the completed gardens would be like simply by seeing how well designed Lakeside Garden is. The rest of the gardens including Chinese Garden, Japanese Garden and Garden Promenade are currently still under construction, estimated to be completed by end 2021, but I guess with the current COVID-19 situation, completion date would be postponed.

In spite of the long drive, we can’t wait to revisit and explore the other areas of the park!

Of Chinese and Japanese Gardens

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Towards the western end of Singapore lies two very beautiful parks that I’ve visited like, three times in my entire life. While Singapore is not considered large by any measure, I’ve always lived in the North/Northeast region with the exception of my 4 undergraduate years and the west does seem very far to travel to.

It just so happened that we found a fantastic home boarder for the girls a couple of years back, and the sweet couple S & D with their golden retriever Kobey reside in the west. They had been requesting to visit Paris ever since news of her cancer diagnosis broke. I didn’t think it nice to ask that they travel all the way to our house just to visit her since she was doing quite well. And so, I proposed to meet them at Chinese Garden. It was a struggle; I wanted to bring both Paris and Belle out together, but the mister put his foot down on this matter. He claimed that I would not be able to take care of both girls while still trying to catch Pokemon monsters (was a little crazy over Pokemon GO at that time). Which wasn’t entirely untrue. 😛

Chinese Garden is over 40 years old, and was modelled after Northern Chinese Imperial style of architecture and landscape. Entrance was free-of-charge and we were immediately greeted with the signature red doors typical of such architecture the moment we walked through the tri-archway entrance.

Paris was in a good mood, being out with me alone and all (i.e. without her pesky younger sibling) and obliged when I frequently made her sit to let me take a few pictures. And what is a visit to the Chinese Garden without posing in front of the Twin Pagoda, a landmark synonymous with the park itself. Although it was in the late afternoon, the sun was still shining mercilessly and I noted that Paris was fast heating up. Her smiles were waning by the second, setting alarm bells in my head. It was time to quickly locate a water point (plentiful within the park, but just have to locate them) and retire to a shady spot while waiting for S & D to join us.

Clearly Paris found her zen spot and started meditating. 😆 She was on her best behaviour that afternoon, which made handling her a piece of cake. That was until she spotted her favourite boarders – she disobeyed my instructions and ran towards them, unleashed. Thank heavens it was a short distance and that she didn’t scare any other park-goers in the process. For those of you who do not live in Singapore, my worry may seem needless but you see… Singapore is made up of people of several races and religion and dogs are not always welcomed. Even ultra-friendly ones like golden retrievers.

S & D and their golden Kobey were too, clearly happy to have finally met Paris since her surgery. Like everyone else who has seen Paris, they commented that she didn’t look like she has cancer. That works like a double-edged sword, I reckon, about Paris looking all normal. On one hand we kinda stop treating her like a fragile porcelain vase and let her live her life rambunctiously like she always does, yet on the other hand, we tend to forget and think that she is normal when she isn’t. Case in point, I recently felt lumps on her tummy and was very alarmed, wanting to send her in for a checkup immediately. The mister had to remind me that she is a cancer patient, regardless of well she appears to be on the outside. I have to repeatedly manage my own expectations.

Our target that afternoon was to walk the dogs and… catch Snorlax! At that time, I still had not caught one while S & D caught several in their home! As we were strolling across to Japanese Garden (it is linked to Chinese Garden but closes at 1730hrs while Chinese Garden closes much later, at 2300hrs), S & D’s friends together with their newly adopted shiba inu caught up with us. And thus, we started walking as a group of five plus three dogs. Attracted quite a bit of attention heh.

We were greeted with beautifully manicured bushes the moment we entered Japanese Garden, a strolling park modelled after the Muromachi and Momoyama periods of Japanese history. It is a beautiful park but we didn’t have much time to explore it because it was nearing closing time (about 30 minutes prior), and a park staff in his buggy had started driving round the park to vacate park-goers. According to S & D, he does this tirelessly every single day. Respect.

We’d spent several hours away from home by then and Paris seemed tired as she lagged further and further behind. Not wishing to over-tire her, I bade farewell to S & D and their friends. It was a long drive home with occasional traffic jam on the expressway. Fortunately Paris took the opportunity to take a nap and had regained most of her usual bounce by the time we got home. Or I would have gotten an earful again.