Gardens by the bay,

A few days before R left for London, we decided to pay Gardens by the bay a little visit in the evening after spending some time with N's pooch dasher. The gardens have grown to be a national icon of Singapore and promotes itself as an open urban recreational space, it also paints a futuristic landscape with the giant supertrees lining the walkways and staring down on visitors. (I love the warm glow they give out during the night). Facing the Marina reservoir, the waterfront garden is divided into 3 sections: the Bay central garden, Bay South garden and Bay east garden.

After hearing much rave about the indoor conservatories, we were pretty keen to check it out for ourselves. And much to our delight, it was a lovely half day spent at both domes ♥ We headed to the indoor cool-dry and the cool-moist conservatories, which cost us less than 30 dollars altogether (with a Mid autumn festival discount of 15% on top of our local rate) so we came at a timely period. I was quite bummed out to hear that the tulip exhibition was over, but the flowers in both domes were truly well maintained and beautiful.

The cool-dry conservatory housed flowers and plants unique to different regions such as Africa and Australia while the cool-moist conservatory was more intriguing because of the interior design (brownie points for the creative use of space) and the in-house waterfall which was overwhelmingly placed at the entrance when you step in (caution: You might get a tiny bit wet because of the force of the waterfall and the water droplets in the air caused by mist vents). Also, the temperature of both domes are maintained at low degrees so do bring a jacket! We spent about 3 hours in both domes, taking our time strolling in each section and being trigger happy. When we made it to the outdoor gardens, the sun had already set so it was a perfect timing to just lay back on our backs on the warm concrete slabs and watch the Supertrees dance its last dance for the day in the night scape of Singapore. Here were some visuals from the day.

The cool-dry conservatory is the larger of the two domes in the Gardens, and mimics a cool dry climate for the plants at 23-25 degree celsius (love the cool and crisp air, it makes me feel like I'm overseas). It features plants from all over the world, specifically semi-arid regions such as the Mediterranean. There are 7 different gardens: Succulent garden, the Baobabs, Australian garden, South african garden, South american garden, Mediterranean garden and the Californian garden and sometimes having a guest exhibition in the center of the dome (it was a mid-autumn festival display at the time we were there).

The cool-moist conservatory aka Cloud forest was done in a neat magical way, it mimics the cool moist conditions in tropical mountain areas. It features a 35m waterfall which greets you almost immediately after you step into the entrance, and the air is misty and full of mystery (the water droplets in the air got me annoyed because I kept having to clean my camera lenses, and I was freezing). Nonetheless, I love how they littered the place with epiphytes like ferns, orchids and mosses which gave the idea of nature taking over kinda theme.

There are many levels to this conservatory, all of which are worth seeing. The much advertised Crystal mountain, which showcases cave minerals and crystals, was quite a disappointment though and we sped past that. I really enjoyed walking around the cloud walk, and getting glimpses of the cloud forest from various perspectives - walking to the top gave a plunging view of the waterfall. There's also a secret garden in the basement, which showcases plants from ravines and tree ferns from New Zealand.

The secret garden.

The gardens outside are open to the public, and by night, they turn into futuristic supertrees that dominate the landscape and let out an alien glow that illuminates the Singapore city nightscape - a sight I'll always think of when I'm overseas and miss home ♥

These supertrees mimic the ecological function of real trees, and using engineering technology to harness solar energy for photosynthesis, collection of rainwater and play a part in the cooling systems of the conservatories. You can try to sieve out more information from their website here if you're interested :) There's also the OCBC skyway walk, which is an elevated walkway between 2 supertrees and allows an aerial view of the gardens. It's 5 dollars per entry, but we decided to give a miss - the concrete slabs were too tempting to lie down on.

The gardens are definitely worth going, and I can't believe we didn't realize what a gem they were! We went on a weekday evening and practically sped through ticketing and the entrances, so I guess it was a blessing in disguise to go there after the hype was over. The nearest MRT is Bayfront MRT and you would have to catch a public bus for a few stops down (super accessible in my opinion) - there would be a Gardens by the bay train station opening but that would only be in the year 2021.

Ciao!