Birds, cards and community art!

On Friday morning I met up with the Smiths for a birdie walk around Eco Green at Tampines. We had a very successful morning seeing quite a variety of birds, including some that aren't supposed to be here. 

sooty headed bulbul, scaly breasted munia, sunda pygmy woodpecker, crimson rumped waxbill

After a quiet weekend it was off to Bukit Gombok for Mondays walk. The neighbourhood consists of two hills. One of them stands at 133m while the other stands at 113m. They are Singapore's second and third highest natural point after Bukit Timah Hill.
The walk took us through Bukit Batok Town Park, a nature park, located in the precinct of Guilin.  The park was created from a disused granite quarry. As such, it has a resemblance to the granite rock formations in Guilin, China. Hence it is also known as Little Guilin or Xiao Guilin among the locals. 

We then continued on to Bukit Batok Nature Park another area developed on an abandoned quarry site. The pond runs deep and still – a relic from the mining days of the region. There is a memorial plaque in memory of soldiers and victims of World War II.  During World War II, the Japanese selected the Lorong Sesuai site as a memorial for the soldiers who died. All that remains are two pillars and 120 concrete steps leading up to a transmission tower. 

As we were about to leave the park an elderly gentleman drew our attention to some wildlife in the trees...a colugo, also known as a flying lemur...despite being neither a lemur nor a flyer! In fact it glides between the trees using the skin between its body and arms like wings. They did not appear to be particularly worried about our presence. Our walk concluded at Jurong after a short stop under a flyover to stay relatively dry!

After an afternoon nap I was off to June's for a game of cards where i was the winner. Most unusually Helen came in 6th place, an unheard of event in card circles!

I had planned for Tuesday to be a quiet day in, but when June suggested a walk around the Community Art at Jurong I had a change of heart. This self-guided Art Trail is part of the National Arts Council Community Arts and Culture Nodes initiative with Taman Jurong Community Club, which introduces visitors to community-based and commissioned art works created by artists and residents, on display across Taman Jurong landmarks. Despite the less-than-helpful self guided map we managed to see all the works listed without getting lost.

The shopping centre had the remnants of '50 Bridges’, Australia's contribution to Singapore's 50th anniversary, which is also the 50th anniversary of Australia-Singapore diplomatic ties.‘50 Bridges’ comprise three elements: ‘50 Walls’ - which brought public art to 50 Singapore heartlands locations; ‘50 performances’ - a program of puppetry performances and film; and ‘50 BBQs’ - 50 simultaneous BBQs, offering a meal of Aussie steak on a special night in June.

Aimed specifically at Singapore’s “heartlands”, the ’50 Bridges’ programme was fun, contemporary, and an apt reflection of the modern Australia-Singapore relationship.

A cohort of professional Australian street artists in collaboration with Singaporean artists brought their artistic talent to walls in hawker centres, HDB blocks, the Kampong Glam enclave and even schools.

not part of the árt'walk just some sculptures in the gardens of a HDB

My Favourite

We had extended an invitation to Kathy to join us but her morning was already scheduled but she did invite us to join her for lunch which we did.

 I spent the rest of the week finishing off some MAE work so only left the house to go to work. 

Lucky for us we have an excellent landlord as our washing machine gave up the ghost on Thursday night and by Friday they had organised a new one with delivery on Tuesday...and as far as we know at no cost to us. Generally, and according to our lease, we are supposed to pay the first $150 of any costs incurred but we have never been asked to do this.

By Friday I was happy to see the MAE work finished, at least for the time being, with just a check over before I submit it to the office.