Tampines Eco Park

This route encompass two parks. The first one is Sunplaza Park. The second one is the actual Eco Park. The route starts from Tampines MRT and ends at the same place.

This Yellow-vein Eranthemum grows along the Tampines PC at Tampines Ave 4.

This one on the same PC looks like a pine tree but I cannot find the correct name for it.

Sunplaza Park is a small park. It does have the basic facilities like a water fountain for drinking. Unfortunately, there isn't many flowering plants for me to take picture of.

This Wild Betel grows besides the path near Tampines Ave 9.

Crossing Tampines Ave 9 and the Eco park is just across the road. This park is unique due to the eco design. There is a sign board that tells you more about it.

To begin with, the path in the park is not the metaled or pebbled road. It is covered with fine grass. This makes you feel like walking in real nature. Even the drain is not made of concrete. It is all natural. You can even find ground creeper plants trying to take over the road surface and the drains.

The very first flower that greets visitors is this Red Penda. It looked like the Red Powderpuff but is more rugged looking. If you look carefully, it is a cluster made from a few flowers.

This exotic colored Blue Strawberry Flowers is the only one I saw since I started visiting parks.

There were plenty of Red Leea growing there.

This nice purple color Chinese Violet is some plant that you cannot miss.

Instead of taking a picture on the front of the big sign, I choose to take it from the back because the plants were grown at the back instead of the front. It is made of wood. 

The Yellow Cosmos in contrast makes you want to move over and have a look.

At some place among the Yellow Cosmos you can find the nice pinkish Wild Cosmos growing besides it.

This Putat Kampung flower sure look like white beard.

It is actually formed by a cluster of flowers as seen dropped on the ground.

The Gomphrena Weed flower is so small that all the pictures are blurred when I tried to zoom in to max to take a larger picture.

The Wild Jasmine is also quite hard to capture on photo.

If you look down along the path, you can see that even the sign boards are made of wood. 

When I was young, this Buah Cheri tree is a sweet fruit tree free of charge. 

You can never miss this Pagoda Flower. It is so bright colored that you will notice it far away.

In contrast the small Wild Tamarind flower provides a different view. It took a long time to focus with the zoom as the wind keeps blowing on it.

Further down the path, there is no flowering plant worth taking pictures. On the return leg of the loop, I find some wooden structured fence and don't quite catch what it is used for.

Across the path behind where I took the picture, it is even more puzzling to see some concrete pillars wound with ropes. It looked like a KungFu play ground.

Looking ahead you can see plenty of dead trees. I wonder why.

Walking further down, I come across this Blue Rush growing near a pool of water. It feels like a rotan when I touch it.

This tree flower looks like bottle brush but is white color. I could not find its name.

This Crinum Lily looks mysterious when taken with darker exposure.

I seldom take picture of toilets. This one is an exception. It is an eco toilet. There is no facility to flush or wash your hand inside. You have to come out and wash on a tap (without sink) outside. There is a sign board describing how it works. According to my companion who used the toilet. It is quite smelly and there is only one toilet inside. 

With the toilet visit, the return path is exactly the same as the incoming path thus no other picture is taken. The whole route is about 4.6 KM.

The route map is available here.

The full album picture is here.

Toa Payoh to Lavender

This route starts from Toa Payoh MRT. It passes through Toa Payoh Garden. It then goes into Whampoa PC, Kallang PC, Kallang Riverside PK and reaches Lavender MRT. The whole length is about 8 KM.


The trip actually starts from the Toa Payoh MRT. Cutting through the HDB hub, the path leads to a over head bridge across Toa Payoh Lor 6. Just beside the bridge, there is a Weeping Bottlebrush tree with nice red flower dangling with the wind.




Toa Payoh is an old estate. However, it keeps renewing itself. The park with a pool is a good place to relax and exercise. The original plan is to go around the whole park. However, the western side of the park seems to be void of feature. The route is thus shortened to just around the pool.


Pink Porcelain Lily grows besides the swimming pool. You have to go quite near to see the ginger gender flower as it always face downwards.



In the pool, you can see a lot of Asian watermoss. This picture is especially nice after last night's rain.



At the west end of the pool is a series of man made waterfall.



On the other side of the pool there is this Peace Lily of the Araceae family. From the name, and the flower, one might think that it is a surrender sign. It is very nice to see one petal flowers growing in groups. I prefer white color type. There is another similar looking one that is red color.



In the same corner of the pool you can see quite a number of trees mentioned previously that bends over the water. Could not get a nice picturesque view except this one.



Turning around the corner of the pool besides the Oasis Bay restaurant. This nice Yellow Mussaenda greets you.



This Dwarf Tibouchina grows very near the ground. It looks like a Glory bush (Tibouchina urvilleana) as the common name suggests. They are actually different species.



Instead of taking the steps up to the over head bridge across PIE, I choose the ram further down. It is longer and further down but is nicer to walk. This part of the route is already on Whompoa PC.



Shanghai Beauty greets you when you go across the over head bridge.



Another plant which I could not find the name also grows there. It looked like Spicate Eugenia flower pod but this one is a shrub not a tree.



This Shower of Gold is common in Singapore. I can see them everywhere.



Crepe Myrtle or Rose of India grows along the canal too. All the picture of this flower are blurred. The wind never stops.



Another yellow color Spectacular Cassia is also found along the canal.



It is interesting to find that the fence goes around the trees along the canal. It makes a nice view at this angle.



There seems to be quite a number of yellow flowers on Whompoa PC. This Yellow Alder grows along the canal too.



It is very frustrating to see the continuation of the PC just across the busy Bendemeer Rd but you have to walk 200 meters down to the pedestrian walk way and back the same distance. There is an over head bridge on the other side 100 meters away. From OpenStreetMap, the overhead bridge way seems to be shorter as the Whompoa PC ends near it.


By now the rain gets quite heavy. I had no choice but to sit it out at a commercial building just before reaching the canal again.





This bridge joins the Whompoa PC to the Kallang PC.




At Kallang MRT, there is yet another long detour to get across the Sims Ave and Geylang Rd. There is no walking path across this two road which joins into Kallang Rd across the river. Well, at least I saw this Yellow-vein Eranthemum while walking along Geylang Rd.




My road side flower interest seems to draw quite a lot of curious stares. There is a foreign worker standing beside the road construction who was looking at me taking the pictures. I must be looking like a freak to them.






Along the river bank garden, I found this Parsley Panax growing in abundance.




This unknown named variegated plant also grows in the garden.




They are both not flowering. It is just nice looking at the plant itself.






While taking pictures in the garden a young Caucasian kid who stood there just watching me while ignoring the commotion created by the other kids about some white chicken running free there.






Along the path, I saw this large Bismarck Palm tree bearing fruit.




Another common flowering shrub, Powderpuff Plant, is also found here along the path.




I couldn't help but be amazed at this Ruffled Fan Palm. The seeds are numerous and bright orange color.




Do you recognize this steel structure? I passed by this path a number of times but can never recall what is this for before I make a detour and venture into it to explore it. It is just across the Kampong Bugis road.




It turned out that this is the remains of the Kallang gasworks. No wonder it looks strikingly familiar.




Just look at the engraving on the pillar. It is there since the Colonial times.




Now it is just a TaiJi playground and a street socker (I think) playground.




Further down along the path, there is a steel pipe sculpture complete with meters. It is the Spirit of Kallang sculpture.




With that, the trip ends at Lavender MRT.


The recorded route map is here.
The full trip album is here.