Weekend outings- November 2012

We visited 2 "much raved" about places over the recent weekends/ public holidays and was a tad disappointed; The first was Pasir Ris Park that has the biggest playground in Singapore. It was our first time there despite it being quite near our house but guess we've never been much of a playground venture gang. In fact, the reason we ended up there was because we planned to go to East Coast Beach but upon reaching there, a walk/jog-a-thon was going on and we couldn't find any parking lots! 

When we reached the park, to our disappointment, a large part of the playground was fenced off for renovation works, including Gerrard's favourite slides :( The swings were available but Gerrard didn't really love it. He's the opposite of me, I LOVED swings when I was young and I was delighted to sit on one again but took a bit of coaxing before Gerrard tries it. I think he likes it "so-so" and he accidentally bumped his butt when getting down and this negative experience confirmed his opinion that "swings are not fun". However, what's good about this place is that it is constructed around existing mature trees hence a fair amount of shade for kids to roam around. There is also a toilet block nearby and that's a huge plus point for young kids too!

We proceeded to another play area where they had some "rocking on the spot" see-saws. I even saw some children who brought along their sand castle gear and thought that it's such a good idea! Who says that sand playing can only be near the beach? :)

I read somewhere that the renovation will only be fully completed in June 2013. I hope the works get done soon and we can then go back to enjoy the new facilities again. 

The other place we went to is Gardens By The Bay, where I had been longing to go for some time. I am not an outdoors person but I think it's such a refreshing feeling to be out in the open with the nicely decorated plants and flowers around! And from the pictures I saw from many websites, there is quite a bit of open spaces to walk about. However, our visit there was not planned properly and we went after a late dinner instead. By the time we reached, it was close to 7pm and maybe because it was a long public holiday weekend, the place was PACKED with visitors. We didn't have the luxury of walking leisurely - was mostly "hurried" along by the crowd and because it's night-time, I couldn't see a lot of the greenery except for the typical "night scenery" of MBS/ Singapore Flyer night lights so by a few scenes, I stopped looking. Even for those lakes that are around the place, I couldn't make out what did the lilypads or plants look like floating in them?! Am glad we didn't purchase the tickets for the Flower Dome because I doubt we could have seen much of that too. 

 Supertrees- I think these are the only attractions that look better at night!

 The Waterfall at Cloud Forest- look magical? It was very cold in there!

 Typical Night Scene of the Flyer

 We could hardly stop and find a nice spot to take pictures due to the sheer number of visitors everywhere

 Crystals

Gerrard was not keen to walk much in the Cloud Forest conservatory and we had to carry him. I kept holding onto his hand because the floor is rather wet (maybe coz it was raining that day) that I didn't even have a free hand to take out my camera to take some nice pictures. Lucky for my iPhone 5! 

On our way to the Cloud Forest, I see quite a bit of open space to walk but by the time we are out of Cloud Forest, it was quite late and we didn't walk anywhere else. I don't think we will go back to Gardens By The Bay any time soon- unless I know of other interesting spots that I had not ventured due to the short duration we spent there this time. And the next time, I will go during the daytime instead :)