Tag Archives: Nature

Singapore

To the treetops!

2 Comments

There’s a lot of green Singapore, the self-styled City in a Garden, but it’s a city all the same. After three weeks in wintery upstate New York and one week sweating in the city, a group of us decided to go for a hike to actually forget that we were in a city (and to reacclimatize to tropical heat).

We chose the Treetop Walk at MacRitchie Reservoir for this morning’s hike, which was swelteringly hot and really beautiful.

No city here, right?!

We exchanged road overpasses for a suspension bridge over a rainforest.

P1060352

View from the bridge, with the reservoir and Singapore Island Country Club’s golf course in the distance:

P1060357

City? What city?

A couple cool shots looking down off the bridge:

P1060360

P1060353

In addition to flora, we also saw quite a bit of fauna! Most of the monkeys scampered off through the trees as soon as they saw cameras, and one bounded straight towards my friend as she tried to get a picture with it. Another headed for a fellow hiker’s bag until other hikers’ yelling warned it off. This one, however, remained still enough and close enough for a quick photo:

We also met a lizard, a much easier photo subject:

P1060366

All in all, it was a very serene way to spend a morning, and we even managed to beat the tropical downpour by about 20 minutes. I was also pleased to see the trails populated with families. In a city that is so connected to technology, so much so that it’s rare to see someone walking down a street without his or her face in a phone, it’s really important to get outside and spend a little time in the real world.

Happy trails!

P1060364

 

Singapore

Adventure Friday

1 Comment

My friend Jamie and I have used the last few Friday evenings as a chance to explore Singapore. We usually start with a quick meal at the hawker center near her apartment and spend the next few hours wandering through a mall, a shopping district, a neighborhood, or simply running errands that we didn’t get to during the week.

This past Friday took us to Christmas Wonderland at Gardens by the Bay. While I don’t have many pictures, the several posted below hopefully give you a taste of the extravagance of this free (!!!!) and dreamlike Christmas land in the middle of the tropics.

IMG_1726
It’s interesting that the theme colors aren’t red and green. These are the same colors that Singapore uses to celebrate Deepavali. Maybe they recycle?
IMG_1727
If Aladdin had a Christmas palace, I think this would be it.
IMG_1730
Supertrees in the background!
IMG_1725
I love the outline of the palm treets
IMG_1733
One of the biggest draws to any evening at Gardens by the Bay is a song-and-light show called Garden Rhapsody in which the supertrees essentially put on a light show set to music. For purposes of Christmas Wonderland, the music was Christmas-themed!

I’ve been to Gardens by the Bay a few times now (you can read previous posts here and here) and I enjoy them more each time. In a city that is so industrialized and often seems like a carbon copy of itself, an oasis like this is both necessary and extraordinary.

Travel Guide

Travel Guide: Krabi

3 Comments

This trip was different than many others that I’ve taken, for several reasons. Firstly, it took place over Thanksgiving weekend, so it was a three-night adventure instead of a more typical weekend jaunt. Secondly, and more importantly, I met up with my friend Lucas (with whom I also explored Hong Kong back in March) and his friend from college, Mel, for the last hurrah of the backpacking trip they were making through Thailand. Finally, this was a beach vacation with no purpose other than playing at the beach. It has been a very long time since I’ve had one of those vacations, and I have all the sunburns to prove it!

IMG_0403_2
Random building that I just loved

Lucas, Mel, and I chose to stay in Krabi Town so that we’d have quick access to an airport as well as a good jump-off point for a variety of water-related activities. We stayed at Pak-Up Hostel, met a ton of really cool people, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

IMG_0406
The bar at our hostel where we spent each evening

On our first night in Krabi, we walked through the night market, which contained the usual number of food stalls and stands selling other random items. My favorite, however, was a mobile library!

IMG_0404

On Friday, we booked a kayaking tour of mangrove forests and sea caves, which was really neat. It took a bit longer to get to the kayak site than we’d hoped, but we couldn’t have kayaked in this area on our own. Unfortunately, most of my cave photos didn’t come out, but this is what we saw on our adventure:

It was pouring when we got back to Krabi, but tropical storms usually clear in a couple hours. This was no exception, and we took advantage of the blue skies to head to Railay Beach, known for rock climbing. As it had just rained, we didn’t see any climbers out and about, but we did see a truly stunning place.

Our water taxi ride to Railay gave us these views . . .

. . . and our time on Railay Beach left me in complete awe:

 

Despite getting caught in another torrential, terrifying storm on our water taxi back to Krabi, we headed to Aonang Beach the next morning to hire a longtail boat to take us island hopping.

P1060315
Interior of our boat
P1060314
Exterior of our boat, complete with captain

 

It took about an hour to get to the Hong Islands, and we stopped in three places to just enjoy our time on the beach. Our favorite by far was Hong Lagoon, our last stop. Lucas and Mel dove gracefully off the boat; I belly flopped painfully a couple times and then opted just to jump.

We could have visited a fourth island, but hunger got the better of us, so we chose to head back to Aonang to eat. We spent about an hour relaxing in some rented beach chairs before making our way back to Pak-Up for a much-needed shower.

This weekend in Krabi was absolutely amazing. The ocean is my happy place and I haven’t been to the ocean in a very long time. Maybe it was the 10-bed dorm room in the hostel, maybe it was meeting up with friends, or maybe it was my makeup case remaining untouched for the entirety of the trip, but I have never felt as free as I did over the past few days. That feeling was entirely unexpected, but I’m glad for it. Sunburn and all, I’d do it again in heartbeat.