Singapore, Round 2 – Parks, Bikes & Birds

By Rough Guy’d

With the weekend upon me again, I ended up doing another thing that very few non-Singaporeans would do. One thing I will point out now is that I ended up spending a lot of time in Singapore. While you might find this a bit strange like many of my friends that I made during my travels later, there is a certain charm to the city that I really enjoyed. 

Having family to stay with meant that I didn’t have to worry about the primary reason why most travellers don’t stay this long, namely the cost of accommodation, and because of this, I was able to stay as long as I want and I managed to see many different sides of the city not normally seen. In this case, it was the Singapore park connector.

Singapore has been trying to sell itself as the garden city for quite some time. As most people on the island live in massive apartment complexes with little chance of ever owning their own lawn, the government made it a priority to make sure that everyone has access to public parks. 

While this has been a success, the parks are invariably scattered all over the city and it was the government’s intention that there be a way to move from park to park without having to worry about vehicles and as a result, they came up with the idea of the park connector. Upon completion, this would give a place for people to cycle or walk all over Singapore, connecting the various parks around the place in a vehicle-free environment.

The concept was interesting as the idea of a safe area all over the city for everyone to ride or jog was appealing. So my cousin and I went riding a pair of bikes late at night (less traffic, less heat) and we met up with some other friends for a midnight bike ride. While the ride was overall quite enjoyable, the one thing I discovered about a midnight bike ride and especially on a park connector that wasn’t completed everywhere, is that it is very easy to miss something, such as a tree root. 

While this wasn’t a particularly vicious fall (or my last one during this trip), it was still none too pleasant but luckily the only thing that was hurt from me was my pride. The bike didn’t fare as well with the chain constantly coming off and cutting our trip short.

By Wednesday, I had decided to go to the Jurong Bird Park and I have to say, it was much more impressive than I expected. While you think that a zoo that only focuses on birds might have too limited a scope, it didn’t prove to be the case. The entire park was broken down into different areas such as rainforest and temperate lake, but the true highlight of the park is the feeding times when the keepers make it into a show, teaching you many facts about the birds and in some cases, letting you feed the birds yourself. 

As well as this, they also had shows as well so that you can see falcons hunting. The rainforest that was mentioned was also a walk-in one so that you can see the birds in a more natural environment. All of this went a lot way to making this park the most enjoyable of the three that I had been to.