Steel dome covering of the cloud forest, Gardens by the Bay, Singapore
Singapore may be small in size compared to its neighboring countries in South East Asia, but it is BIG in structures. Not just bigly 😉 We mean REALLY HUGE! I refer here to the Gardens by the Bay, a project of the National Parks Board of Singapore. The Board seems to have pulled out all the stops developing this project in its push to portray the city-state as THE Garden City of the world.
I am extra fascinated with this project because of its imaginative blending of massive steelwork with nature and the environment. Coming from the steel-building industry myself, I can fully appreciate that manufacturing the steel curves and beams, and erecting the structures are no mean feat by themselves.
The Gardens by the Bay is a botanical environment sprawled over more than 50 hectares of reclaimed land in the Marina Bay of the city-state. It consists of two giant steel domes covering cooled conservatories, and about eighteen Supertrees that serve as vertical gardens. One dome, called the Flower Dome, houses a variety of plants from the Mediterranean regions, while the other dome contains the Cloud Forest for plants from the Tropical monsoon regions. And the flowers, oh the flowers! It is a pity that I can only include here a few photos of them.
We hope you enjoy viewing the photos in this post, all courtesy of dear daughters Anisa and Aziza. Also, below is a YouTube video from the Gardens lead designer, Grant Associates, neatly summing up the undertaking in a slick presentation (please view in high definition, as much as possible).
– SSJ, 3 Sep. 2017
fantastic! would love to go there sometime. how blessed you were to be able to experience it!
Thanks, Msjadeli! I hope you do get to visit the Gardens . And while you’re in Singapore, you should also check out its other charms: http://youtu.be/WYFe2-hqA2Q 🙂
thank you for the suggestion! it is appreciated
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Such a beautiful place . I totally could get lost there
Thanks, Tachiwi. Well, Singapore usually gives a 30-day visit visa. So you have about 30 days to find your way out of there 🙂
I probably need about 5000 to get there from Barbados too 😂
Wow! This is very nice! I must visit this when I’m in Singapore again. If you’re ever in Thailand, make sure you visit Bangkok’s own enchanted garden/jungle called Metro Forest 😊
You should, Tiff! And thanks for the tip about Metro Forest. Will keep that in mind if I get to visit Bangkok. 🙂
Excellent! Let me know if you do go then! Btw, I nominated you for a Liebster Award (I mentioned your blog and linked you into my post about it: https://blogsimplyt.wordpress.com/2017/09/06/not-another-cake-post/). Feel free to join. In any case, I love all the content you post on your blog. I like it’s a variety of posts rather than just one specific theme. It’s always such a pleasure to read what you write and I absolutely cannot wait till your next post! 🙂
Thank you for your heartening comments about the Sandstars Blog, Tiff. The pleasure is mine too, knowing that you like my blog well enough to nominate it for the Liebster Award. Thanks again! I will surely let you know when I get around to joining the fun of the Liebster Awards, and whenever I get a chance to visit Thailand too.
Lovely! Looking forward to reading your post soon 😊
Great shots!
Thank you, JMacIndoe!
Nice structures! Good choice for the challenge.
Thank you, Shibin!
It is amazing how Singapore makes the most of its limited size.
True, Imelda! What amazes me more is the extraordinary discipline displayed by its seemingly incorruptible people (which by the way is a harmonious blend of many races and many religions), and the resulting efficacy of governance & infrastructure systems that they run over there. It looks like they have honed that ‘limited’ size to their great advantage.
What kind of water are the Singaporeans drinking? It would be nice to have that back home. 🙂
The Philippines may need more than Singaporean water to get its act together 🙂 but yes, it should be looking at Singapore, for one. And Malaysia too! It is very admirable how Malaysia amicably handled Singapore’s separation from the Federation of Malaysia (in 1965), and subsequently the two countries going on their separate ways to develop themselves into the peaceable successful states that they are now, something that the Philippines sorely messed up with respect to the ancient Sulu & Maguindanao Sultanates’ struggle NOT to become part of the Philippines, a floundering commonwealth in the 1930s that chose to name itself after the name of its colonizer and oppressor. Today, the so-called Bangsamoro conflict in Mindanao continues to drag the Philippines down in many devastating ways: economically, politically, even socially. You may sense a hint of bitterness there, but really, our islands could have gone the way of Malaysia and Singapore considering the regions have common Malay, Javanese, Chinese racial origins & temperament, and shared histories of external colonization.
I cannot understand how our country could make the conflict drag on forever. It may be presumptuous of me to say that I understand your bitterness since I am a Luzon born and raised person myself and had not experienced closehand the difficulties in Mindanao, but I do not blame you for the bitterness. One time, I was so exasperated with the barrage of news about the Mindanao conflict and I blurted out to my boss how the Philippines cannot simply allow the regions concerned to secede. Of course, it raised my boss’s brows considering that we were lawyers and supposedly knowledgable about the Constitution and such. Having said that, I wonder what our country needs to move forward. It seems that everyone we elect, no matter how good on paper, is eventually eaten up by politics and puts his political (if not economic) future first before his country. Sometimes, I love hope.
It is always therapeutic to have hope. I’m hoping that somehow the Phil. Constitution can be rewritten sooner than later, since that seems to be where a major root cause of the problem is festering, but of course things like these are easier said than done. Going back to the topic of Singapore, I think this article, neatly sums up the secret to the success of Singapore as a country: http://global-is-asian.nus.edu.sg/index.php/sharing-the-secrets-of-singapores-success/ Thank you for the conversation, and enjoy the weekend! 🙂
I know that some sectors are floating the idea of a federal system of government in the Philippines. I do not know how effective it will be vis-a-vis the culture and attitudes that we have. Is that a change that people from the south envision?
I will check the article soon. Thanks for sharing it. 🙂
The Philippines is spread out over thousands of islands (over 7,000 of which about 2,000 are inhabited, according to Wikipedia), and is a composite of many regional communities, each with its own distinct culture and dialect. It makes sense to have a federal structure of government over the islands. I cannot speak for the people of the South, but one large faction of a liberation front, the one being led by Misuari, seems to now favor the federal system as a solution to their struggle for self-determination, while a second major liberation movement now negotiating with the government on a so-called genuine autonomy envisions a sub-state that can be evolved into a federal state once the constitutional laws are in place. I keep my fingers cross on these matters for now 🙂
That sounds reasonable. My only hope is that our country will study the matter carefully and not let politicians decide based on their self interests. My main misgiving about changes as big as this is the quality of thought given to the plan. It seems that back home, people decide based on the exigencies of the moment without thinking about long term effects of their actions. We are still not used to the idea of long-term planning I think. People want quick fixes that will themselves need quick fixes down the line.
Politicians of the various Philippine republics have been at this game since 1899, and politics there has grown thicker than a dense cake one can cut it with a knife every way and still have enough left for everyone. Politicians will keep on deciding the fate of the country whether we like it or not. The people will have to learn to select better politicians – nay, statesmen – to fix the dysfunctionalities of this system that these same politicians have cursed them with. Absent this learning, or a benevolent dictatorship, or a bloody revolution, it will remain a catch-22 situation for many more generations to come.