Jungles, Twirls, and Tiger Tails

I've been taking pictures of the jungles, both urban and, well, also urban.We had some special weekend clouds, so that helped.

You can never capture the height and breadth of the jungle, so I focused on the gnarl.

They look fantastical, but these twirly vines didn't lead me to Jack (of the beanstalk) or George (of the jungle), which is good, because neither are strong social distancers.

Similarly, a strangler fig has encompassed a bovine-sized rock.

Which reduces the risk to us, I guess.

We found more cliffs. Before this year, I was aware of zero local cliffs, now we've found 3. Next, we will look for the portal to Narnia.

Barry said "Oh look, it's a huge fish". He doesn't get out much.

This is Little Guilin. Now I just checked, and Big/Normal Sized Guilin is a mountain range. So I might have gone with Very Wee Gui, or maybe just Teeny Tiny Linny.

Please have some zen:

Speaking of not getting out much, the marketing team made some bad decisions with a surprising and poorly-placed tiger graphic. We all want to retire while we can still tiger tail, I guess.

Speaking of bovine (we were above, your attention span is just too short to remember), we're coming up to Chinese New Year, and the year of the Ox/Cow/Bovine is gender neutral. Decorations and contagion restrictions are going up, stay tuned!

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Exploring the Frontiers

We've been mostly people of the interior, so it's time we explored the frontiers! Above is mystery sea fruit, below is the western lighthouse.

Behind it is the bridge to Malaysia, with a single vehicle on it.

Now I'm not good at boats, but this one intrigued me. Comes with its own garden, swing, little giant step stool and land transportation!

Most people chose more traditional boating methods. I learnt for the first time that there are different sails, depending on the angle of your picture taking!

See? Just as Barry splained it and I much listened.

Once again, we spotted Malaysia.

Over on the East, you can see the Kelongs, which are suprisingly old-fashioned looking fish farms. (You can tour them, if you're not prone to the boatsicks...)

And onto to the South, which I like best at night, when the ships' lights create an unphotographable mystery world, so here we go by day.

Including the Old Man's Swimming club, seen here.

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Everything goes to Ruin

If we create a beautiful things, they can still go to ruin. Here, tiny Barry gives perspective to how small we can be in the face of this. Mystery tree culvert above, and bamboo below.

Singapore has amazing hiking, which allows you to contemplate the world, which we've been doing more often, of late.

I enjoy the fauna,

Such as this common gliding lizard (not that common: first time we saw one).

And flora,

(do these tree figs make my trunk look fat?)

What we've been into lately is the extensive and mysterious ancient ruins, which are consistently found in Singapore's forests, due rain/humidity/mould and urbanization of older villages.

Next to the plain of jars, there is are some portals to another dimension, which many need right now.

There are always obstacles that we need to overcome.

Back in the 1970s, there was a truck here. This is it now.

The seating gave us a clue.

We found remnants of an old drinking party: brandy, Benedictine, and 1970's dishes. (Date now confirmed). Good times!

The ruins, along with the recent rain, make for some fun fungal life too.

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Boars and Saurs!

Have a roarsome new year! We went hiking to see wild boars. Here is the best picture we got:

We saw one in the rain right behind the sign telling us not to feed them! It was worth getting wet. Some people didn't believe that we had wild boars in Singapore, even though I'm very serious about things porcine, so click away.

We moved on to see the dinosaurs. I spotted them immediately.

Well, hello little guy!

Barry has watched a movie where he learnt not to go through this door.

These two guys clearly wanted theirs spikes scratched.

Having hung out with a few children, I know that dinosaurs have all renamed themselves since we learnt about them. So here's a Smoothesaurus.

Brainlumpasaurus.

Jurassic mile, according to its website, is "Singapore’s newest and largest permanent outdoor display of life-sized dinosaurs." While I'm not aware of smaller, or older permanent outdoor displays of any-sized dinosaurs, I'd say this was a great use of space between the airport and a golf course!

Just to check, we went to an older, indoor, permanent display of life-sized dinosaurs.

It was less colourful.

Actually, the Jurassic mile is missing a pterodactyl, which I think could be the scariest dinosaur.

The natural history museum also branches out into crabs and fish.

Hello, I'm happy to see you too!

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