Lower Peirce Reservoir Park

Bryan and I have been to Lower Peirce before, but it's been a long time since we've been back. The past week, I was doing some field work at Lower Peirce, and I saw some pretty cool stuff there, including a wild boar mama with her piglets! So Bryan and I decided to go over the weekend.

When I was doing field work at Lower Peirce, I got really lucky and spotted two owls high in a tree. I was stoked because I think owls are some of the most fascinating creatures out there, and I haven't had many opportunities to see them in the wild. And I've never seen one in Singapore. The owls make me happy because they remind me of an owl that used to hoot outside my window at night when I was a little girl.

GIANT EYES!!!!!!!

These guys are spotted wood owls. Spotted wood owls are apparently quite common in Southeast Asia. They eat small mammals and other birds, and apparently they're usually on their own or in pairs. The first time I saw them I saw two together, but when Bryan and I saw them, there were three perched in the same tree!

I can see how they came to be associated
with intelligence! They look so smart!

So with a sighting of three spotted wood owls, Bryan and I were off to a good start. We walked along a while and caught up with some monkeys. Of course. It's not hard to miss the monkeys around here!

Oh, hello there

If you read the blog often, you probably know that Bryan and I play a lizard-spotting game (one point for each lizard spotted, whoever has the most points by the time we get home wins). Well, the game recently got more sophisticated. Now there's a point system:

New Wildlife Spotting Game
1 point for a lizard
2 points for a colugo
3 points for a snake
1 bonus point for a species we've never seen
1 bonus point for a baby animal

So I was pretty pumped when I spotted a snake while we were watching the monkeys. THREE POINTS!

An elegant bronzeback. They have super skinny bodies that remind me of shoelaces!

This snake is pretty common in Singapore. In fact, I'd spotted the exact same type of snake earlier in the day at Bukit Timah. But seeing a snake is always exciting, and I really like the elegant bronzebacks. They're non-venomous for one thing. And I think their big eyes make them look like they're always babies. And who doesn't love a baby snake?! Well, lots of people, I guess. But I think they're cute.

Come on, you know he's cute

I figured we were having a pretty good wildlife day - three owls, a snake, lots of monkeys. But it was about to get a lot cooler. I was following the monkeys along a quiet path, and up ahead I saw some skinny little toothpick legs. Oh my gosh. I nearly squeezed Bryan's arm off as I whispered, "Is that a mouse-deer?! IT'S A MOUSE-DEER! LOOK AT IT!"

Mouse-deer, the most adorable of all the deer
and one of the smallest hoofed mammals in the world

It was indeed a mouse-deer, but those little guys frighten very easily, and it bounded off into the woods before Bryan could get a very good picture. But it was really exciting for us. We've never seen a mouse-deer in the wild (bonus point for me for spotting a new species!) and they are really cool. They look so strange with their rotund bodies supported by such spindly little legs. Bryan and I grew up seeing lots of big, hearty white-tailed deer. A deer the size of my parents' Shih Tzu jsut seemed silly!

We saw a bit more wildlife on our way out of Lower Peirce. But after a mouse-deer, it's hard to get worked up about forest snails and grasshoppers, even strangely patterned black and yellow ones!

Pretty neat! But a little anti-climactic after our mouse-deer...

So we had a pretty fun day at Lower Peirce! And I reigned supreme at our new version of the wildlife-spotting game. I crushed him 14 points to 7. Maybe he'll have better luck next time :-)

Chingay @ Heartlands

Bryan and I were enjoying a quiet Sunday at home when we heard quite a commotion outside. This isn't entirely unusual considering that we live opposite a sometimes raucous Hindu temple, but this was louder than average. When we went to the window to check it out, there was a whole line of floats queuing up on the street!!

A colorful view

On the green down the street, loud music was playing and dragon dancers were performing. Lots of people were milling about waiting for the parade to get going, and the traffic was backing up around the block. The floats got moving and they came right past our flat. We had a great view from our twentieth story window!

Check it out! Dragons AND the Singapore Flyer!

From the side of one of the floats, we learned that the parade was for Chingay. I don't know how I've managed to live in Singapore for two and a half years without ever hearing of Chingay, but apparently it's a parade held every year as part of the Chinese New Year's festivities. It originated in Malaysia as a celebration of Chinese deities' birthdays, and eventually made its way to Singapore, where it became a multicultural celebration and was incorporated into Chinese New Year.

Lots of the floats had elaborately costumed dancers

The main Chingay parade is a big affair held downtown, but the smaller parade we saw was part of an effort to bring Chingay to the heartlands. Similar parades were also held in Ang Mo Kio, Chinatown, Bukit Panjang, and elsewhere.

My favorite float!

NUS's float had a fantastic butterfly! It looked like it came right out of a coloring book!

So pretty! Way to go, NUS!

There were eleven floats in all, each more colorful than the last.

New Creation Church's float was covered in BALLOONS!

Another float was sea creature-themed!

Bryan and I really enjoyed the last couple of floats, which looked like old-fashioned ships!

The waves looked really pretty

The hearts on the sail are a nice touch!

The parade definitely brightened up our Sunday. It was nice to have entertainment just outside our window!

P.S. Matt, a fellow blogger also did a post about the Chingay parade he saw in Bukit Panjang. Check it out here.

Things We Find in the Woods Part Ten

Field work is in full swing, and that means ample opportunities to see neat new nature and wildlife! First of all, how about this super weird thing we saw in the water at Pulau Ubin?! It was long and squiggly and undulated all over the place. At first it looked like a long pink ribbon drifting through the water, but a closer look revealed that it was generating its own rhythmic movements. I think it's some kind of sea worm, but I couldn't find any more information about it in my handy dandy Singapore Biodiversity Encyclopedia.

I've never seen a sea creature that looks like a ribbon dancer!

Speaking of things that squirm and slither, how about THIS thing?! It's a terrestrial flatworm. Yes, that orange thing is its head. As my supervisor so accurately stated, "That thing looks like something out of X-Files." True. It behaves strangely too, eating up earthworms like they're going out of style!

Probably the weirdest wildlife I've seen in SE Asia. About 15 cm long.

At first we weren't seeing many snakes, but one day at Bukit Timah I saw an elegant bronzeback. I love those snakes - they're long and super skinny, and they're harmless, so I feel pretty safe observing them.

Who can resist this cute little guy?!

My bronzeback sighting seems to have broken our snake dry spell, because the next week we had a two-snake day! First I spotted this guy in the weeds off the trail. He's the venomous Wagler's pit viper, so we gave him a wide berth and moved on.

Not a great picture, but you get the idea!

A couple of hours later, I found ANOTHER snake. And guess what! It was a snake I've never seen before! When I first spotted its bright colors, I definitely thought it was venomous, but then I remembered a little rhyme my dad learned in the army,

Red to yellow, kill a fellow

Red to black, friend of Jack

I'm not sure if it's 100% accurate, but in this case, it was right. This red-to-black reptile is the harmless twin-barred tree snake, which is capable of gliding through the air, just like the paradise tree snake!

A NEW SNAKE!!! HOORAY! I wish Bryan could've seen it!

OK, I made it halfway through a nature post without mentioning monkeys. That's the best I can do. So. One day in MacRitchie we encountered a group of monkeys we'd never followed before. We'd been around them for about 5 minutes when they started alarm calling. That usually means that there's some kind of threat around - if the monkeys aren't habituated to people, they might alarm call at them. They also alarm call at other groups of monkeys and a variety of potential predators, including dogs, snakes, crocodiles, large monitor lizards, birds of prey, and more. We were pretty sure that we weren't the source of their distress, so we started looking around for what they were all worked up about. We didn't see anything, but the alarm calling went on and on for about a half an hour. We finally saw the root of all the excitement when this guy lumbered slowly around the bend in a little forest stream!!!

He was HUGE!

He was bigger than an adult monkey. I don't blame them for alarm calling!

If you know me well, you probably know that I ADORE turtles. They're probably my favorite animal after monkeys. Singapore has lots of red-eared sliders, but unfortunately I haven't observed many other turtles in the wild here, so this was really a treat. I think this is a Malayan flat-shelled terrapin, but I could be wrong, so any other suggestions are welcome!

Up until a few months ago, Singapore had a railway that connected to Malaysia (read a neat blog post about it here). The train tracks ran right next to Bukit Timah, and there were lots of fruit trees along the tracks, so the monkeys spent a lot of time there munching on fruits. When the train service stopped, Singapore decided to remove the tracks, and there's discussion of turning the old rail path into a green corridor (hooray!). I followed the monkeys to the site of the old tracks one day, and was astonished to see how well the land had recovered from the tracks. It looks like there was never anything there!! The section of tracks in the photo was left behind presumably because it runs across an overpass and would have been more difficult to remove.

Hard to believe trains were running here 6 months ago!

Of course, no nature post is complete without monkey photos! The road that leads up to the Visitor Center at Bukit Timah recently had new drains installed and the monkeys discovered that the drains make an excellent fort! They played in them for hours, popping in one hole and out the other, tackling each other, and wrestling.

Check out mah new FORT!

Go find your OWN playhouse. This one belongs to the Hindhede monkeys!

Watch out for lots more wildlife posts in the months ahead!

Bukit Batok Town Park

I bet you thought that Bryan and I had already been to every park and nature reserve in Singapore by now...but we haven't! There are still a few places we haven't visited yet. Bukit Batok Town Park was on our list of places to go (I also had to go there for work, to look for monkeys). So we headed over there one day. I hadn't heard much about the park, except that it's always confused with Bukit Batok Nature Park (clarification: BBNP is in Bukit Batok, near Bukit Timah. BBTP is near Bukit Gombak MRT station). I was pleasantly surprised by this little park. It's beautiful!!

Wow!

These dramatic cliffs descend right into the water. The park is also called Little Guilin, apparently because the scenery is similar to Guilin, China. But it reminded me a little of Phang Nga Bay in Thailand. It's not as huge and breathtaking, but it's lovely nonetheless...and it's right here, right by the MRT!

Surprising scenery for Singapore

The park had lots of little alcoves and benches and places to hang out. It seemed like a nice place to relax or have a picnic (but watch out...there are reports of food-snatching monkeys hanging around!)

Cozy little nook

Someone left this cute little elephant behind

There was some wildlife in the park too. As I sat along the water, I heard some movement along the shore. It was a huge water monitor in the process of catching and eating a huge silver fish! And of course Bryan was off on his own with the camera, so we totally missed the photo op. But while he was off looking around, he got some cool shots of a bold green crested lizard that was hanging out right by his feet.

Hey, man. Got any bugs I can eat?

We also caught some butterflies in a private moment! We snapped a photo and left them to their business. I'm pretty sure these butterflies are a type called "Common Mormons," which is one of the more unusual butterfly monikers I've heard.

Common Mormon butterflies

My colleague recently introduced me to a neat plant called a touch-me-not (aka sensitive plant, humble plant, or sleeping grass). Once she showed it to me, I saw that it's super common and occurs all over Singapore: along sidewalks, in nature reserves, all over the place. The plants are fascinating. When you touch the leaves, they quickly fold in on themselves. If you leave them alone for awhile, the leaves slowly open up again. It seems to be a type of defense mechanism. I think this is awesome and I have developed a bit of an obsession with these plants!!!

The touch-me-not, my second favorite plant (after pitcher plants, of course)

After I touched it, it closed up on itself!!

If you step on the plant when you're walking, the whole plant closes up. The plant becomes so much more compact that it can be hard to even see it!

Open touch-me-not

Same exact spot after stepping on the plant...you can hardly even see it!

OK, that's the end of my rant on the awesomeness of the touch-me-not. If you get a chance, I recommend heading over to Bukit Batok Town Park to check out the scenery, the fun plants, and (if you're lucky) a little wildlife!

Year of the Dragon

The city is decked out in red and gold, the shelves of every bakery are packed with cookies, and the lines at the bak kwa stalls are stretching down the block. It can only mean one thing - Chinese New Year! My favorite part? The 4-day weekend that we get to celebrate!

This Lunar New Year marks the beginning of the year of the dragon, which is, in my personal opinion, the most awesome of all the animals on the lunar calendar. There are 12 in all: horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, boar, rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, and snake. Come on now. Dragon is obviously the winner. It could destroy all the other animals on the calendar. The monkey's pretty cool too. I'm a rat. I think I got the short end of the stick there.

It's been a quiet holiday for us. After two weeks in the US, Bryan's friend visited us here in Singapore for a week. Between that and applying to graduate schools (yikes!) it's been a very busy few months. So we've been laying low this weekend. In the year of the dragon, I'm hoping to get back on track and start updating the blog more regularly now that grad applications are out of the way.

In our weekend of relaxation, we did find some time to celebrate Chinese New Year by watching How to Train Your Dragon!

Clearly the coolest animal in the lunar calendar (Toothless, from HTTYD)
Image: Dreamworks Animation

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

A Night on the Town

My 27th birthday was recently, and Bryan went out of his way to make it extra-special. He even took the day off work to go follow monkeys around the jungle with me! When we got home, he told me to get dressed, but wouldn't tell me where we were going. So we put on some nice clothes and got a taxi. Bryan told the driver to take us to Marina Bay Sands. Then I said, "OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!! ARE WE GOING TO SEE WICKED?!?!" And Bryan said that we were indeed going to see Wicked, and I got really, really excited.

So we drove through the pouring rain and arrived at Marina Bay Sands, which we have never visited before. In fact, when we first moved here, we enjoyed watching the building get taller and taller as they built it. It was kind of surreal to be going to the finished product for a night out.

Standing at the bottom of MBS

We were early for our dinner reservations, so we explored a little bit. The place is so over-the-top I can't even handle it. I've never been to Vegas but it's what I imagine Vegas would be like. I mean, there's a canal inside the building. Inside.

Woah. There are people in boats...inside the building.

There was even a huge fountain flowing into the canal. I'm not gonna lie, it kind of looked like a giant toilet bowl emptying out.

The fountain, from inside and outside

Roaming around the Marina Bay shops was a little mind-boggling. I think every designer name I've ever heard of had its own store. There was Gucci, Coach, Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Armani, Dior, Prada, Ralph Lauren, Versace, and lots more. I don't think I've ever owned anything as fancy as the stuff they sell at MBS. Well, maybe I have. But I probably got it at Goodwill.

A fancy Louis Vuitton on the bay

We went out the back of the building, and the views were amazing. We could see the skyline, the Esplanade, the Singapore Flyer, City Hall, the Supreme Court building, the Merlion, and tons of other Singapore landmarks. It was pretty impressive. Oh, and there were tons of big white beach balls floating in the bay, apparently in celebration of the holidays.

Downtown skyline

Slightly hazy view of the Esplanade

After we spent some time admiring the city and gawking at all the glitzy stores, Bryan led me to Mozza, where we were having dinner. And our friends Brian and Andrea were waiting there for us! The surprises just kept coming!

Oooh, it looks so fancy. And I bet they have loads of cheese.

We were seated and started perusing the (pricey!) menu. Everything looked amazing, and we decided to start with, of course, a mozzarella sampler.There were three kinds of cheese, all fresh and soft. The sampler was served with toast saturated with really good olive oil. The kitchen also sent out an hors d'oeuvre: crispy crackers topped with more cheese and tangy olive tapenade. Yum. Our main courses were served, and things just kept getting better. I got ricotta gnocchi with wild mushrooms.

Ricotta gnocchi with wild mushrooms

It was definitely an "only-on-your-birthday" kind of meal - cheese pasta in a brown butter sauce. Luckily those mushrooms were there to make me feel like my dinner had some nutritional value! But wow, it was super tasty. It was the kind of dish where every bite is a little different - sometimes I could really taste the smooth, buttery sauce, other times the savory gnocchi were at the forefront, and sometimes it was the earthy mushroom flavor that dominated. Bryan let me taste his meal too - cheese ravioli with five different types of onions, also in a butter sauce. My meal was great, but Bryan's was even better!

We had some time to kill between dinner and the show, so we walked around a little more. I was glad we did! One of the stores we passed (a place called Robinsons) had two Wicked costumes on display! I was very excited, because I knew I wouldn't be able to take photos in the theater. I was even more excited when we watched the musical and the costumes worn by the lead performers matched the ones we'd seen almost exactly!

Galinda's beautiful dress

Elphaba's witch dress. As our friend accurately stated,
"It looks like something Helena Bonham Carter would wear."

So then we went to the show. It was strange to walk into the theater, because it kind of just looked like another mall storefront but then you got inside and it was massive! We took our seats and things got underway pretty quickly. The show was amazing. I've been listening to the Wicked music for years, but I'd never actually seen the musical, so it was really fun to hear each song and think "Ohhhh that's what they were singing about!" I also read the book on which the musical is based (Wicked by Gregory Maguire), so it was interesting to see how the musical's storyline differed from the book (in my opinion: the musical is way better). I couldn't take pictures inside the theater, so here are photos of some sketches that were on display with the costumes!

The lovely Galinda

Dark and mysterious Elphaba. See that reflection?
It's a subliminal message telling you to go see Wicked!

I can't really say enough good things about the musical. The singing was fantastic, the cast was super talented, the dancing was exciting, the theater was lovely, and I would totally do it all over again. When Elphaba starts flying around and singing "Defying Gravity," you just might want to hop out of your seat and fly around with her. If you'd like to experience it for yourself instead of just listening to me prattle on about it, Wicked will be showing at Marina Bay Sands Grand Theater until February 26, 2012. It's fantastic, and I highly recommend checking it out. You can purchase tickets here.

So that looks like a night all wrapped up, but it turned out we still had a bit of a hassle to deal with. When we left the theater, we were greeted by the longest taxi queue I've ever seen - literally hundreds of people and not a taxi in sight. The bus stop was mobbed, and we weren't particularly close to an MRT station. We waited a comically long time at the bus stop before we gave up and just started walking. But our transportation woes turned out to be sort of a blessing in disguise, because it gave us a chance to appreciate downtown, beautifully lit up at night!

When the walk is this scenic, who can complain?!

Night skyline

After our surprisingly pleasant walk to Raffles MRT station, we learned that we'd had so much trouble due to an MRT outage, which had caused some of the buses to be diverted to take on MRT passengers, and lots of taxis to be taken up by stranded MRT riders. So it goes. The next day we learned that it was one of the biggest MRT service disruptions in history. What can I say? The city shuts down for my b-day!