Haw Par Villa 6/16

For the price of a song ( S$1.00) you get to see so many interesting things. We were there on a weekdays and nearly have the whole place to ourselves. 13 years later we revisited the site with our kids.

Products that we grew up with.. in this part of the world.

& this is mine..

Ten Courts of Hell.... and a sampling presented below

Depends what 'bad' things you have done in this world.
You will be punished
in the afterlive
either by hot copper column

Or get saw into halves

Or stabbed with a level with pointed attachement

Cant pay your debt... i will take your wife

A central pattern of a lotus leaf

False mountains and figurines... abound
but it was the tiny flowers that caught my attention

With 'fruit' still attached.

New leather design ? Actually the bark of a palm tree1925 Buick, modified California Hardtop

TTW07 - Camera testing ..

My 7th trip to HSBC TTW. The objectives today is to test out a day's old camera and see how it fares against my old Cp995 and DSlr. Close to noon it was still sunny and hot but shortly after I crossed the ttw bridge it started to rain heavily.
Notice how the fruit was peeled back and the delicious interior consumed.
I was looking hard at both sides of the road, hopping to catch a glimpse of my favorite berry. Then I found the shrub with quite a number of singly berries.

Another color and macro test using leaf of a false 'tapioca'

Colorful algae - just the target I needed for color and texture testing.

Camouflage of some sort ? The cluser-of-spikes is a definite giveaway.

"Dancing in the wind "
I found this feathery pulai seed
caught in a strand of spider web and swagging in the breeze. (See tree image below) Wondering why there was a sudden shower of pulai's feathery-white airborne seeds I looked up ( there were no strong gust then) and noticed this triangle wedge-shaped nest. It was made up hundreds of bees. Nearby a monkey was picking up berry/flowerson totally oblivious to the potential stinging encounter.

Here is another hopper found on bushes along Venus Link.

The spikes caught my attention.

Jack fruit's bud - I held out my camera as far as I could . The camera chosen to focus on the hairy portion instead.

VERITICAL STREAKs of rain fell pass the terentang tree and towards the earth 25 metre below me. A steadier stream of downpour was seen in mid lower right of the image above. The bridge was deserted. I was alone with one hand to the umbrella and the other holding my brand new camera.

At the Ranger Station - I was hoping the rain would abdate. Instead I heard the rain came from far , the sound of rain beating down on the canopies reverberated through the air, like a train approaching!! I decided to walked back to Venus drive around 2:15pm rain or no rain.

The verdit: first day of testing and this camera had demonstrated good potential. Hand-held close-up was a breeze( if i can hold my hand steadier) , the 12x optical zoom was god-send.
Its a Canon PowerShot S3!


TTW - at start of the bridge. GPS - bearing..

You are much larger than me , Lady

NEA weatherman predicted a late morning thunderstorm.. so I grabbed the camera/lens and tripod and headed towards an overhead bridge near my work place. It was a Saturday morning, traffic was light.Nephila antipodiana(?)
Did you find the tiny 'red' color spider piggy-back on the female?

I have been watching this spider since her 2-D web appeared a few weeks ago. It started with a magnificent web - the largest have even seen - easily measured 3 feet x 4 feet. Just a day later heavy rain and fallen leaves etc had damaged most of it. I monitoring her daily. I can even spot her across the street in my bus journey home. She stays put most of the time in the centre of web. Waiting patiently for prey to stumble into her 'deadly' trap. Her method is not different from my meteor catching setup - any meteor that 'wandered' in the lens FOV get 'snarled'. She appeared to have growth over the weeks.

Side view - (click) the image to have a closer look at the tiny spider sitting on top.

TTW06 / McRitchie

View of Pierce Reservoir from 25 metre tall Tree Top Walk bridge.
The red/white chimneys of Senoko Power Station 11 Km away.
Young fruits seen on TTW bridge

Golf Link - Hundreds of small squid-like tentacles - flowers of an unknown wild orchid
Yet another white- collar Kingfisher
@ McRitchie Reservior Park

Meal time - a juvenile Purple Heron caught a lizard near Golf Link

Row, row, row your kayak...

I just came out from under the 'butter fruit' tree
then i saw this black fellow flew to a tree top branch,
spreading out the wings and sat there motionless--MacRitchie R Park