Gardens by the bay

Gardens by the bay - a beautiful garden designed with environmental sustainability as its design mantra and touted as the top 10 best gardens of the world was our next stop on our travel list. Built from reclaimed land, it has two conservatories, 18 super trees and nearly 700,000 plants from all over the world(except antartica). The park opened in 2012 to the public was built with the vision of converting Singapore to “City in a Garden” from garden city.

After alighting from the monorail we took the MRT to Marina bay, hoping to reach the gardens in half an hours time. Only after boarding did we realize we were in a route that would go around Singapore and stop at Marina bay after an hour. We immediately realized our folly, got down at Outram station to change over to a short line. Yet again, we ended up 3kms short from the gardens. Since time was now a premium and the gardens would close by 9 , we hired a taxi. The taxi driver dropped us at the Gardens and told it would be open till 2 midnight. When asked if it was safe to travel at midnight, he said there are undercover police and it was safe to travel at night.

Happy about the closing hours we leisure walked the long pathway towards the ticket counter to submit our tickets for the conservatories. The guy immediately discouraged us from entering and said “it is already quarter past 8. You need atleast one hour for each conservatory, utilize your tickets tomorrow and get full value”.

We told him we would manage to see whatever we can in 45 minutes since we would be flying out of the city the next day.

So, you see we were right the conservatories are open till 9.p.m only and the taxi driver was also right, the gardens around the conservatory are open till 2.a.m. The entry fee is only for the conservatory and not for gardens which is free.

We divided the 45 minutes between the two conservatories and tried to do maximum justice to the value of tickets and time. I will let the pictures speak about the garden. I will be dividing this into 2 photo posts since i don't want to miss sharing some of the photos. But at the same time,i must say our camera got tired in the cloud forest and conked off, one of the lenses refused to work and moreover we rushed through the place. Can't vouch for the clarity and quality. Still i will share them with you all:) 

                           

The two conservatories you see along with the super trees and lakes like Dragon fly lake  constitute "Gardens by the bay". Much efforts have gone to plan and design for sustainable cycles in energy and water throughout the garden. 

From the gate to the conservatory, we walked through the pathway under the ceiling, but did not forget to catch the super tree in our lens. 

As one enters "Cloud forest" conservatory,  this is what awaits you . You are veiled in mist and look up to a 35 metre tall mountain covered with plant life from tropical highlands and also this is  world's tallest indoor waterfall. 

One can ascent the mountain by lift or take the  walkway designed like a ramp. We went up the ramp and descended by llift. This is the cloud walk where you walk amongst artificial clouds. 

                                 A Design of the patagonian express, railway station in Argentina adorning the mountain side

                                 All along the pathway up you find vertical forest.........

It would have been a treat for a botanist or anybody interested deeply in the subject. 

We simply enjoyed the  cool greenery, write ups  and rushed up towards the peak. while the 3 of us rushed up, my dot who was clicking photos was left behind.   Our camera got tired and refused to take good pics and my dot refused to budge from the place. From then on our hand phone took care of some pics.and we crossed over to the flower dome.

The flower dome replicates the cool-dry climes of region like south africa, california, spain, italy etc and so you have nearly 9 replicas of gardens from all the above countries. 

At flower dome , we were totally there standing in awe of nature. 

fascinating succulents.......all through the rim

                   

 My daughter was fascinated by these flowers and clicked nearly 10 pics of these from different angles. She found them to be like fairies. 

                                                  An evening in Paris

 That is the flower field which keeps changing its theme, this time it was french gardens, the hotel you see in blue is captured in full below

The beautiful lights in the ceiling of the hotel caught my attention and made a pretty sight from across the french garden. The photo does not do justice.

Some more flowering plants 

That is the french lily

Some of the trees from countries like senegal were shipped to  fit here. Some were too large to come in a shipping container. 

                         And this is the super tree taken during the sound and light show and the OCBC skyway. The evening did'nt end here, i have some more to say and show , i will post more pics  later.