A day in the Singapore Botanic Gardens

I woke up around 8.45am to the constant beeping of my alarm clock. Today, I was meeting Simin and Hui Lian at the Botanic Gardens. We have been there once three years ago, so I was looking forward to going there again. We were supposed to meet at Holland Village to grab supplies for our picnic. It was overcast so I was slightly worried that it would start raining when we reached the Botanic Gardens like the last time. Turns out, all my worries were for naught. By the time I reached Holland Village, the sun rays were shining down mercilessly. I waited at the meeting venue for about 45 minutes before the girls arrived.

After buying the supplies we needed from Cold Storage, I had a feeling that we were not going to be able to finish all the food. We bought a box of freshly made salad which consisted of: Spinach, Chicken, Bread Pieces, Pumpkins, and Raisins. My initial thought that this would be the weirdest salad that I would have ever consumed in my life. Turns out to be pretty decent. We bought a Honey Baked Chicken. I suggested to take the smaller one but they insisted to take the largest one available. We went on to grab a Tuna Spread of Biscuits (Which I picked out), a loaf of white bread, a bag of Sour Cream and Onion Raffles chips, and a few bottles of drinks. I listed out every single thing just to emphasize the amount of food we bought. We started making our way to the MRT to grab our transport to the Botanic Gardens. We passed by a Pizza Hut outlet and then decided to buy three slices of BBQ Chicken pizzas. The reason why we bought so much food was probably due to the fact that we have not eaten breakfast yet, and this has led to our misjudgment of how much we can actually fit in our stomachs.

Spinach Salad from Cold Storage

Once we reached the Botanical Gardens, we managed to find a shelter that was currently occupied by a little girl and her mother. They were throwing bread crumbs on the ground which the native pigeons were happily picking off the ground. We settled down in the seats opposite them and decided to start eating the slices of pizzas. We realised that the birds were able to smell the pizzas that we were eating and one by one, started to approach us. It was hilarious watching Simin react to the birds. At one point, she just jumped on the bench when the pigeon approached her. Hui Lian was swinging her legs at the birds to try and scare them away from us. At one point, this seems to work but the birds kept coming back. We swiftly finished our pizzas and the salad we have bought and decided to start exploring the park.

I was chatting with Simin about the camera on the iPhone 6 when she told me that it had the HDR function. The realization of the fact that I had not turned on the HDR function since the day I got my phone came crumbling down on me. (Of course I’m being dramatic) In actual fact, I was kind of disappointed that I have not found out about this function sooner.

We walked through familiar routes that we have taken the last time we have been here, and we started reminiscing the good old days when we came here as polytechnic freshmen. We came across the orchid garden and turns out we only needed to pay a dollar for the entry fee as students. We took numerous of pictures of the colourful flowers within. After that, we came across the single, white bandstand that stood out from the nature surrounding it. We wanted to take a similar picture that we took three years back. However, there was a couple taking wedding pictures there. We decided to take a seat at the swings nearby. About 15-30 minutes later we walked back and there was like a TV crew there. (At least that’s what I think). We strolled to Swan Lake and decided to sit nearby to eat the Honey Baked Chicken that I was carrying the entire time. Of course, we were unable to finish it and we walked back to the Band Stand in hopes of remaking the picture that we took years back. There were about four wedding couples taking photographs around the bandstand but fortunately we were able to take some decent photographs before one of the couples started approaching us.

This is the photograph that we took today

And this was us 3 years ago.

I think we did pretty good ^^ 

We were shattered and decided that it was a good time to head home. Though we stumbled through the blazing heat and got multiple mosquito bites, we enjoyed ourselves a lot. We will definitely be here three years later to remake this photograph.