Meandering thoughts of a sailor, traveler and foodie.: Perks of the Job

And since I’m NOT a government employee working for the GSA, my perks aren’t that much.

However, I do work for a University that provides continuing education to engineers around the world. So I’ve got a chance to pretty much dabble in every continent except Antarctica over the last several years.

My latest trip took me to Singapore. Although my trip was questionable, more on that later, Singapore itself is a delight. The people there are warm, friendly, there is a huge western expat community, and the city itself is clean and very safe.

The city was buzzing about their new botanical accomplishment Gardens by the Bay, so I thought it would be a good day to venture out and shake off the jet lag. It opened just the week before, so things were still pretty new.

The basic concept was they wanted to create a biodiverse park that was essentially self sustaining. There was the gardens themselves which are free to the public, so you can wander through areas that are designed after different parts of the world. There are two lakes that are designed to catch rain water and supply the needs of the park.

Dragonflies with stained class wings

More dragonflies in the Lake

Lake, with super trees and one of the conservatories

The part that really appealed to the geeky side of me was the SuperTrees. These manmade structures are designed to provide power through solar cells, collect rainwater for the lakes and conservatories, act as heat exchangers and exhaust vents. One of the ‘trees’ will eventually have a restaurant in it for some fantastic views of downtown Singapore.

Restaurant coming soon

There are two conservatories that charge admission. The first contains flowers and plants from several different types of the Earth’s biomes. As you walk through the conservatory you see Africa’s baobob trees, the American Southwest Saguaro catus, a palm grove from the south pacific, and plant life from the African savannah and Australian outback, the air is full of the smells of the fresh flowers and orchids that are part of the flower gardens.

Olive Oil me Please!

The second conservatory is nothing short of awesome, it was a six story rainforest complete with waterfall. You start at the top of the waterfall and work your way down via a series of catwalks. I’m not a big fan of heights, but the views made it worth my while.

My vertigo ain't reserved for heeling boats!

Hard to see but one crapload of cargo ships out there

The last ‘paid’ part of my ticket was to walk the sky walk among the supertrees, this actually did get me a bit freaked out, but I managed to snap a few pics before heading back to terra firma.

For the rest of the day I wandered Singapore a bit more, got to the water front where they were having a huge practice kite fest – the ‘real’ kite festival would be in a few weeks. I got the joy of dodging about 100 little beginner kite fliers as a sponsoring company decided it would be very cool to give 6-8 year old kids their own cheap kites and let them go nuts.

I cleared out after the second attempt of decapitation. And I did have my moment with a cute little girl who was about to lose it cause she couldn’t get her kite to fly, I helped her get it into the air (nothing short of a miracle considering how many yards it had been dragged back and forth against the ground), and was awarded with a smile that could light up the world.