Horticulture....anyone?

HortPark – the 23 hectare gardening hub/regional park is situated near Depot Road and is also a park connector connecting Telok Blangah Hill Park to Kent Ridge Park.

Last week Amy asked me to organize a walk for a small group and so I chose this place coz it is totally new to me tho I did read about it while planning for CtYF outing last year. Today is the day to go and the Seahs wanted an early early morning walk….7am was the meeting time.

Woke up at 5am but refused to get up till 5.15am. Left home at 6.05am and my route for this morning was Bus-MRT-Bus-Bus-Walk :o). Reached HortPark on the dot....7am :) Angela sms at 6.45am saying she would be running late coz they just left CCK. Then she sms again reporting that BK had stomachache and needed to find toilet. 3rd sms at 7.15am told me they just cleared the jam and was at JE.

What about the seahs? Totally no news…..hmmm.. .they must be so good at direction that they didn’t need help (thinking to myself). My first sms to them was at 6.45am about Angela being late & possibly myself too coz I couldn’t get on the bus due to overcrowding and had to wait for 2nd one. This sms went unanswered. At 7.15am decided to call and check on them. Thank goodness I made that call……coz I practically woke them up from their sweet slumber!!!! Had anticipated traffic jam & slight delay but little did I expect the Seahs to OVERSLEEP!!!! Their excuse??? Same as any student for latecoming…..alarm rang but slept a little while more and yah……hahahahaha…..

Angela & BK arrived at 7.30am in Anthony’s car. He was made to go early to work so he could send them here……oh well, erh…not made but requested lovingly by Angela :o) I made full use of my time to devour my big pao while waiting…..mmmm….yummy!! After the Ong sisters arrived, we sat by the lovely banyan tree-style pond to wait for the seahs. Talked about lots of stuff and was feeling rather sleepy already. BK commented she was also feeling a little hungry and so Angela asked me to sms the seahs to grab something on their way here. Amy replied to say they couldn’t but Eld Seah would prepare some kaya bread for her.

At 8.30am, she sms that they finally left home and at 8.50am or so…..they were right behind our chairs and with a GREAT BIG HELLO!!!! Took a pic with the lovely backdrop to kickstart our day (p.s. the pair of fork & spoon was dished out from the water by eld seah....guess a diner dropped them & never tell....:)

Thus began our journey to conquer this park….

We had to walk down a long ram to enter the park area. As we were strolling down, a woman jogger came panting by. She had a mp3 strapped to her arm and she looked really flushed and tired plus sweaty. But she kept jogging. Eld Seah sprang into action behind her....perhaps being inspired by this 50odd age woman.....i dont know.....but he was Ji En & Shing combined!!!! Imitated the woman to the exact detail, as in the way she jogged, the speed and even the arms action. From the back, i saw them in similiar motion....hahaha...i would say he came close to 99.9%. As she turned left off the ram, he did a hilarious thingy......what Mr Bean would do......the stupid legs action, fumbling and hesitating kind..... OH MAN....this is our elder Seah.......17 trapped in a 70-year old body!

First stop was this sculpture that has no name….didnt stop us from taking our next pic together :o)

Angela....where is thy body?

Next was the Bamboo Labyrinth. It is a series of circular paths enclosed within a grove of bamboos and visitors are to meditate while walking inside. There are 3 steps to follow:

1) Reflect
2) Empty your mind
3) Erh… I forgot… something to do with exiting….. sigh.. should have taken a pic of the instructions.

Anyhow, it was a very small area and you can try from 4 corners to get to the centre. Eld Seah walked straight to it and stood there like a scarecrow with arms outstretched….back facing us. BK & I walked the path and followed the labyrinth….remembering the 3 steps as we walked. Reached the centre and stopped behind him. Amy was holding her camera to get ready to take a pic while Angela took the back path and was walking towards the centre. Then Amy called out to us to face her. BK & I turned & were getting ready to pose when suddenly Eld Seah’s voice boomed so loudly. I felt a big WHACK on my back (to be exact, the right top quadrant of my back). WHOA!!!!! Whatever happened???? Who or what hit me??? I honestly didn’t know and was too shocked to react. Now, what did our elderly seah do this time? He did the propeller thingy with his hand and swung his whole body round, thus hitting me. It wasn’t very painful but it was a whack alright….resembling some emoticon thingy that I have used on Aaron, Shing, JJ & Lemuel in msn…. Hahahaha…. finally got a “taste” of my own medicine….literally…… :o(

(just a random thot... how come i always have "injuries" in almost every one of my outing trips????)

Do i look like "in shock"??? hmmmmm.......this was taken after the HIT!

We decided to take with the beautiful bamboos. Shing would have love it here......his home.......ahahahahhaa.... Tho he is not here, we were not short of pandas. Angela became the cheeky female while eld seah was erh…. the old crippled one......LOLS....looked like lor!! But nvm, he has one loving admirer...

Random candid pics

There was an old crib converted to flower bed. Our 17-yr old pretended to rock the crib with the sound of a crying baby. This was not captured on video but i will remember it for years to come.....hahahahahaa

Pics of me with
HUGE flower......

lotus.....

penguin!!!

Spotted a small pool.... which is 1.2m deep at one end and 1.5m at the other. It is a concept pool....more for people seeking ideas how to do up theirs. And since all of us didnt have a pool in our house, it didnt hurt to take a pic with it as if it is our own.....heeeeeee. Oh yes... now i recall....we went thro "great" lengths to take this shot. We needed a stand for the tripod and guess what we used? haha......one of those round stools seen at the bottom right corner of the pic. Eld seah did the hercules thingy. It was comical coz he anticipated it to be really heavy (those Qing dynasty type of stool) and so he did a "YAH!" and up he lifted, rather effortlessly. How so? Coz he detached it from its base.....the heaviest part of the stool!!! LOL! Hmmm....Angela & I helped to bring it over and so Amy could do wonders. Poor Amy, she has to be the one running to & fro throughout this day, esp when we took group pic...being the only one who has a little portable tripod stand to her camera.....3 cheers for her!!!

As the whole place was just so fantastically lovely, our ever lovey-dovey couple took some great romantic shots :)

More crazy shots from some of us...... guess Angela topped the list with good posing skills & imagination :o)

Because we were "naughty", eld seah locked us up in a temporary cell.....with me protesting the most :o(

Then came tea break and we were released..... found a Gazebo shade with table and chairs. Sat down to eat our goodies... mostly brought by Amy (the cookies made by Cindy, Jamesy's mom). What took place during the break is everyone's guess..... YUP..... the bible verses time with eld seah!!!! Today, he made us think of a verse that begins with our names. Angela & myself had to think of a verse that starts with "A" while BK had to do a "B". At first we kind of panicked but soon, we were able to think and recite to him....not entirely word perfect :) Hmmm....then eld seah happily took out a packet of potato chips to offer us. The brand is REAL and "natural with salt" chips. Oh my.....it tasted a little salty to us and we took a little of it.... but he erh....went on to finish the whole packet!!! Talk about food lover, or rather CHIPS lover!!!

While we were enjoying our break, a group of kindergarten kids led by some teachers were approaching us and we heard one teacher calling out "Rachel, Rachel, come here.." All of us turned to see who is this little Rachel girl and she looked soooo cute with poutty lips. Eld Seah went into playful mode and called her name as she passed by. She was taken aback. We played along and called "rachel" too. This little girl started to wave back at us tho she had no idea who we were. Her teachers too... hahaa

One lady teacher commented

"Wow..you all know Rachel?"

"Yes.....we know the mother too... and she is here!!!" (Eld Seah replied & pointed to me)

Yah yah... all the Rachels in the world are my daughters and Isaacs my sons......argh....

Posing for a relaxing touch at a mock-up garden..... Amy & Eld Seah scored full marks for bestest posers!!!

Rested enough, we moved on. Came to this lovely section and 4 of us wanted to take a pic together. Cracked the brain for a creative pose and we came up with this (see pic below). Angela remarked that we looked like sitting on a MA-TONG (in chinese & literal translation is toilet bowl).

And i said "Huh? You want us to look constipated and face showing that we are doing the BIG biz????"

She exclaimed "NO LAH! So unglam!"

And so you have it... we are all smiles (toothy grin!)

BK & I under the palm.... what a relaxing moment....esp away from the hot sun

Next was the Fantasy Garden and whhoossh... this unleashed the KIDDO in us and voila....see the results.

HortPark really lives up to its name...being a knowledge hub for plants & gardening, providing the platform to showcase garden designs, products & services. Took some beautiful garden concept and somehow wished i can have a garden like this too (tho i have no green fingers & plants will ultimately DIE under my care).....

We spotted this table & chairs or rather stools and wanted to pose as having conference.....guess we failed miserably.....Amy looked more like holidaying (with cap) and our BK a shopperholic (with the paper bag thingy)....LOLZ!

We are pleasantly surprised & amazed that Nparks has done up this place so beautifully. Look at some of the gorgeous flowers in this park....I dont even know all their names!!!!

All of the above flowers were taken by Amy..... incidentally, it was only today that i know she has a nickname... and pretty hokkienish one......guess......

Haha...... it is AH HUAY (hokkien for flower)!!!!! How so? Because she loves flowers and loves to take pics of them. She did this conscientiously.....and a pretty good job too!

The not so "Ah Huay" me took pics of the rest of the "uncomely" stuff..... :)

(haha....some of these photos were taken by Angela & Amy too)

My primary school nickname was also made known today... Lalang! How did i get this? Oh well, i used to be a shortie but suddenly grew so tall one day that my friends called me this nick. To them, i was like lalang.... long and tall. But to eld seah, it has a different meaning...of which i could not recall now....argh.... Anyhow, tried to check it online and found none. Haha....but i got this instead:

Operation Lalang (Weeding Operation; also referred to as Ops Lalang) was carried out on October 27 1987 by the Malaysian police to crack down on opposition leaders and social activists.

And so, here is a pic of the spectacular lalang.......what awesome colour, right? I love it!

There was a small green house look-alike with hydroponics inside. There we saw KangKong being grown (is that the word to use)....mmmm.....and we spotted a little grasshopper on its leaves. Eld Seah was very quick with his hands & caught hold of it. Angela gave a scream coz that fellow was so tiny.... he could have crushed it.... hahaha....our 17-yr old released it almost immediately after a lady's scream.....not bad for a gentleman! Oh boy....guess no one come close to the level of "cruelty" of two of our youths... namely Ji En, the one who burns his prey & Caleb, the one who maims them..... :o(

It took us less than 3 hours to comb the whole area (after deducting the time taken for stopping to look at plants & flowers plus pics & a rather long tea break... one can easily round this place up in a 30-min quick walk...without stopping kind). Hey, come to think of it....23 hectare is not that big after all!!!

There were some glass houses with very very pretty flowers inside... expensive ones i guess....coz they were all locked up! We could only see thro the glass and most were Orchids. The following shots were taken thro the glass.....not bad huh? 2 were taken by Amy & 1 by me :)

Eld Seah (with his ever-so-bright eyes) spotted a ballerina look-alike flower

pretty pretty, right?

Found some interesting stuff and I clicked them for memory.....

leaf prints on the ground... interesting right? Kind of reminded me those movies with treasure hunting like Indiana Jones and booby traps beneath.....heeezzz.

Beautiful KOI!!! Clicked at the right moment to see a lover-pair :)

Hmmmm.... this lovely willow tree (i think) is so unique that we decided to click and add to our collection

These cactuses are on sale at the HortMart inside the park. They do sell other gardening stuff but Eld Seah & Angela said all very EX!!! And so the seahs bought one tiny little cactus plant for only $2.90 :)

We soon came to an end of the walk and it was really an enjoyable & eye-opening trip for me. Eld Seah was so eveready to ask us the names of the plants (esp vege & fruits). He was so excited to see tomato, passion fruit, cucumber, lady finger, corn, french beans, etc..... the list goes on... We soon concluded BK is the better "botanist" while Angela is a "biologist". I failed miserably in all his questions and so no "awards" given.......

Took some pics at the HortMart..... mostly on a swing which is for sale. It is going at $680!!!!! Angela & BK kept saying i should get one for my home.... where to put???? Anyhow, while posing for a shoot, Angela suggested doing the CHIN thingy.... she said this is Singapore style as compared to the Thai "V" shape sign under the chin. OH MAN..... i told her this is CtYF Style tortally!!!! YUP... i did it too......we chinned BK!!!!

Prior to this, Angela & BK also did the chin thingy..... hahaha.... to flower girl & black doggy!!! What insanity!!!

Hmmm.... Aaron & JJ....did you teach your moms how to chin?????

Pics taken at the entrance of the HortPark........dont we look great, blending with nature? :o)

Complaints??? Yes.. i have one! It is about the MAP by Nparks.... oh man, why they keep doing wrong maps for the public? We encountered this in Ubin & now here...sigh... We were at the Hands on House which is situated near the end of the park. Thot we checked out the big erected map and see where we were exactly (tho we already knew our location). The map shown was the aerial plan view and all details correct except for one BIG error.....the phrase "YOU ARE HERE" is SOOOOO WRONG!!!! Where was it printed? Right smack on the first building as you come into HortPark....they call it the HortCentre!!!! Can you imagine the tourist's frustration if they try to read and make sense out of this map? The very info one look for to indicate the positioning is the one that brings confusion!!! I really wonder who does the map....as in is it being out-sourced or done internally? Whatever the case, they better improve on their maps & info. The ones in Ubin are so so lack of info plus wrong ones. Hmmm.....should i complain???? heeezzzzz

At 11.50am, we left HortPark to head for lunch. Eld Seah & Amy drove us in their VOLVO & treated us to a sumptuous lunch at Boon Lay Raja restaurant. What was the menu? Dont you dare salivate...... CHILLI CRABS, SHARK FINs SOUP, HAR GOU (Shrimp dumpling), YAM something, MANGO PRAWN thingy & ROASTED WHOLE CHICKEN!!!!! Wow.... not forgetting the deep fried buns that come with the chilli crab dish.....mmmmmmmm......bread..........




Supposed to have Herbal Jelly for dessert but this restaurant doesnt serve. Amy was rather disappointed and Eld Seah offered to let us try his TEH TARIK. And so, we followed them home (Angela had to go to the bank first & will join us later on). There, Amy downloaded all our photos & put into a DVD for both Angela & myself. We had a good time of fellowship throughout the day and it ended with the newbies to piano playing grade one songs...... haha.... Angela was trying to play from Amy's books and claimed tho same song title....arrangement was different and so she couldnt really play. Told her she is not supposed to memorise them but rather learn to read notes. Once she has done that, she can play any grade one songs from any other books! LOL! Amy too... she tried to play some songs and wow....they really need determination & passion to see them thro if they want to take up this new hobby :) Considering them learning now as adults.... they are doing pretty OK.

To the 2 of you, JIA YOU....k?

Finally, it was time to go home.... almost 4pm! BK received a present from Amy for being the best behaved person today.....NAH!!!! She was given a new haversack coz all of us couldnt "take it" when we saw her coming to outing or walk with a plastic or paper bag!!!!! And since Amy has a new bag which is just the right size for BK, she gave to her. What a makeover.....tho not extreme but it was a transformation alright.....:)

HAHAHAHAA.......3 of us walked back to MRT. Passed by POSB bank and i asked them if they could see Eld Boon. LOLS!!!! They knew it too and we all exclaimed the close resemblance.....Angela whipped out her camera and took a pic of "eld boon" to show to him on Sunday!!!! I can imagine Eld Boon chuckling away now.........

Had diarrhoea a few times in the seah's residence...and so the ong sisters headed to MRT station while i hopped into a taxi. Thank God for friends & company. Thank God too for how He has kept the weather perfect (without rain) so that we could take lots and lots of lovely shots. I had a mission to accomplish today (tanning) but sadly....dont think i have achieved much....argh..... Will try again another time.