So, I actually got around to make it to the Botanical Garden yesterday, and whereas you won't see me stopping in the middle of the street just to admire blossoming leaves and analysing whether they are monocotile or dicotile (people don't actually do that, do they?), I really enjoyed the trip itself. Okay, using the word 'trip' seems like the garden is hundred kilometres away and we had to dive, cycle, crawl, run, row, and try not to kill ourselves in the process just to get there. To be fair, let me say that the garden is just near Orchard, okay.
See? Now you don't seem so interested anymore. I knew I should have gone for dramatic effect. Bugger.
On the hind side, our little tiny outing didn't exactly run smoothy as we hoped for. Well, just between you and me, I was hoping for a sunny day with a side of cloudy so it wouldn't get too hot and I wouldn't die perspiring or worse, looking beyond awful (I need to get my priorities sorted out). And I don't know, maybe if I would encounter some exotic looking animals, I would sing and the birds would follow me and dance along, and the day would involve some rainbows and beautiful sunset.
Was it really too much to ask, you think?
Never mind, I knew you wouldn't understand. A girl has to have an active imagination, okay. So anyway, where was I? Ah yes, there's a good reason why we looked like we just got slimed in the picture. No, we weren't swimming in the lake with bunch of swans, neither were we fighting over who got to feed the fish and ending up pushing each other to the water, we are civilised human beings, if not anything. What happened was, the rain ruined it all. Yes, just soon after I mentioned 'I love the weather today, it's a bit cloudy so I'm not sweating, see? I wish everyday could be more like this', the thunders stroke and I swear I heard someone laugh as if say, 'you like this weather? I GIVE you real weather!' C'mon, are you kidding me? I completely just jinxed it!
By that time we were just going in the garden and it's called garden for a reason, meaning it's outdoor, okay! Once it's raining, you basically just...get stuck. And that's how we started this-so-called-rainbows-sunset-trip. We were trapped in a little bungalow and the rain was just crazy beyond belief and oh, the wind! Half an hour later, we were soaked in water, we were shivering, and we were cursing. Okay, he didn't curse, I did. He just kept apologizing, for what, I'm not sure.
Luckily (yes, it could only get better, no?), eventually the rain subsided, leaving only drizzle and it was at least safe to walk again, You know, safe from being stroke by the lighting? Safe from getting blown away by the wind?
So off we went, and there's the map of the garden, pretty big, huh? The entrance was at the far end of the left and we managed to walk all the way round the path.
The thing about going just the two of us again? Just a little bit troublesome to take pictures! So far we've encountered strangers who just couldn't count 1,2,3, those who stood so far away you'd think we're epidemic or something, those whose hands seemed to be catching parkinsons out of a sudden, those who looked suspicious they might rob my camera, well. Thank goodness for them or these pictures wouldn't be here.
So, that's the National Orchird Garden, which we had to pay to get in. At that time, we didn't know how much it cost so we just didn't bother. Later on, we found out that for students actually it was just one buck.
It was taken at the 'Shaw Foundation Symphony Stage'. Word has it that they held music perfomances here sometimes, that could be interesting although I never seemed to have heard anything about it.
See?
There's bound to be some flowers, right? I did not pick it out okay, I'm Miss. Environment now.
We found this funny-looking huppah. I told him how people usually got married right in the middle of it. Oh, bless the tripod and the 10-seconds-timer shot!
This 'evolution garden' was quite interesting, there were years-mark right on the road every some hundred metres or so to chronologically resemble how the earth looked like according to the year. So for instance, it was, say, 400 million years ago, then there would be stonehenges, volcanoes and ancient-looking rocks.
...or something like this.
..and this.
The year went way up to 'present day', and by then we would have been back to the original route so we could continue our walk forward.
Admiring the purplish blossoming flowers.
He said during weekends when the weather is actually being friendly to manhood, people just come here to sit on the grass and have picnic, read books, chill, whatever. Wow, that is great. I think my memory of actually being in a garden and sit by the grass was when I was so small when my family went to the Bogor Botanical Garden and I would just run around wildly. Mom then would call up our names and we would sit on the mat to eat our lunches along with so many other families doing exactly the same all around us. I haven't thought about it for the longest time. I miss that.
So this might not be an exotic animal, but there's something about swans! This is actually really great, cos the swan was initially up far away in the lake and we just came closer to get better look at it. Suddenly it swam right up to us, made a calling sound and another swam approached us too! They actually walked to us from the pond to the land and they just came so close to us that I had to run back a little. Hey, swans are not carnivores, right? Ha!
Look at that, it was initially that far!
...and suddenly there were two! And they were literally marching right up to us. Oh wow, I think that's the higlight of the day.
They were walking around for a while in the land while I was too busy being amazed, and they went back up to the lake and swam away together.
I was saying this to my friend, "where are the white swans? They would look so prettier in the picture!" and he called me 'swan-ist' if there is such word! Hey, just to make things clear, I have no problem with black swans, okay!
..the closest we could get to a real sunset. Oh well, the rainbow will have to wait.
So the night fell. We were tired for walking and we found this on the way back. Something magical about the water, even though it might have just been the lights.
Aside from having exhausting ourselves, we were hungry. Personally I could eat an entire cow myself!
We had our dinner at Holland Village (and this time we actually made it!) and because I don't see any 'a whole cow' up in the menu, I settled for cheese prata! There weren't that many choices there but I loved the cheese nevertheless.
And here's to a day, which could have been better, but could have been a lot worse, so...ah sod it! It's a great day!
1 comment:
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