30 Apr 2023 - Rifle Range Nature Park

Rifle Range Nature Park is the next park where we ventured on a Sunday morning.  Situated along Rifle Range Road to the south of Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, the park is 66 hectares and serves as a green buffer to protect Bukit Timah Nature Reserve from edge effects and abutting developments.

It is also Singapore’s first net positive energy nature park, with the energy harvested from the solar panels installed around the nature park exceeding the expected annual operational energy consumption of the site.

There are many trails in the park.  Our plan was to walk towards the quarry, but we took a wrong turn and ended up on the Rambai Boardwalk, which led us towards Beauty World.

We then made a U-Turn and went onto Gliders Boardwalk, which links the Visitor Pavilion to the Quarry Wetland.

Transformed from the former Sin Seng Quarry, the wetland makes full use of the existing terrain and provides habitats for wetland animals and migratory birds.  From the quarry, we looked up and saw an observation deck on the cliff, which we decided to go have a look.

We then started hiking up Coluga Trail.

Once we reached the Colugo Deck, we were rewarded with a panoramic view of the surroundings.

Coluga Deck is located 31 m above the Quarry Wetland.

We spent about 15 mins admiring the views on the deck before walking back to the Visitor Pavilion to mark the end of our walk for today.

Though a bit crowded at certain parts of the park, overall it's still a nice walk.  From the car park, we decided to drive along Rifle Range Road, thinking it will lead us to Macritchie according to the map, but we ended up in a dead-end.  So we turned back towards PIE and drove to Shunfu market for an early lunch.

23 Apr 2023 - Springleaf Nature Park

Starting this week, we have decided to take a morning walk in various Nature Parks around the island every Sunday.  We began this routine at Springleaf Nature Park, which is located along Upper Thomson Road.  There is a small car park at the park entrance. 

Springleaf Nature Park was formerly part of the Chan Chu Kang village.  With urbanization, the Chan Chu Kang village and nearby plantations were left to rest and became nature corridors between the Central Catchment Nature Reserve and surrounding green spaces.

Sungei Seletar (Seletar River) cuts through the park and it is rich in biodiversity.  It's really a nice walk in the nature until the sun starts to "scorch" the land.  As such, it's important start out early in the morning.

As we walked along the river, we saw many lily pads and beautiful water lilies sticking out from the water.

Other than the usual white water lilies, there are pink ones as well.

Below are some other flora that we saw around the park.

A cicada on the tree trunk.  Initially I thought it's a cricket.

Following is a resident chicken family consisting of a rooster, a hen and a chick.

After the walk, we had an early lunch at 928 Ngee Fou Restaurant Ampang Yong Tau Fou, which is just a stone's throw from the park.

15 Apr 2023 - Dessert @ Loft after "Super Mario Bros Movie"

We heard lots of great review about the Super Mario Bros Movie and decided to watch it tonight.  Jerlene and Javier, who are Super Mario Bros fans, enjoyed the movie very much.  In fact, older fan like me also love it!  :-)

After the show, we decided to go have some dessert/snacks before going home.  Searching for cafes that were still opened at that time, we found a place called "Dessert @ Loft" nearby.  It seems to be newly opened and their cakes and brownies are all freshly baked in the cafe.  It's nice but the ice cream scoop seems a bit too small.  :-)

5 Apr 2023 - SYF Modern Dance Presentation

After practicing for months, Jerlene and her Modern Dance CCA mates presented their dance routine at Ho Bee Auditorium, University Cultural Centre today.  This is for the Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) Arts Presentation.  This year, they actually live stream the presentation online.  I managed to watch the presentation and comparing with some schools before them, I must say that they are much better, in terms of song choice, choreography, costumes and of course, the dance as a whole.  Can really see the amount of effort they had put in for this event.  With that performance, I am highly confident that they can achieve a Distinction for that performance.  Enjoy the presentation below!

2 Apr 2023 - Seng Kee Black Chicken Herbal Soup Pte Ltd

We sent Javier to his classmate's house, somewhere at Kembangan, to work on their school project.  After that, we decided to find a place to have our lunch.  After some searching on the net, Tracy suggested Seng Kee Black Chicken Herbal Soup Pte Ltd, which is nearby.  The place is like a corner coffee shop but selling Zhi Char.  I ordered Pork Cutlet Fried Rice and Tracy ordered Pork Liver Mee Mua.  The fried rice was comparable to King of Fried Rice but I like its pork cutlet more.  We also dabao a Prawn Mee Sua back for Jerlene, and she likes it too.

1 Apr 2023 - Our Roof Plants

It's blooming season again at our roof terrace.  Though I've not been giving too much TLC to the plants recently, some of them are still growing very well.

Tracy had added a number of new species to our collection and they all look good!

Below is the Red-Leaf (Cranberry) Hibiscus.

Besides plants, fungus also started to join in the party!