Trip to East Coast Park and Evening Concert at SBG

Following the New Years celebrations N and I felt in need of a "walk in the park". We had not yet visited East Coast Park which lots of people have recommended as a great place to cycle, sunbathe, get sea views, eat sea food and relax although we had been warned that it can be very busy at weekends.

           Friends were in Singapore for the Christmas/New Year break and their beautiful daughters joined us in our mini adventure.

It was a lovely sunny day with a cooling breeze, the beach looked pretty clean and inviting although with all the ships near by goodness only knows what lurks in he water!

 

                                                     NT with J J's x3 ready for cycling!
Although we have our own bikes in Singapore they are not folding bikes and therefore not allowed on the MRT or in taxi's so we rented 2 single bikes and a 3 person 'bike' in a lovely candy pink

 N and 2 of the girls were keen to take their wagon for a spin but quickly discovered it was a 'beast', not very manouverable and really hard work. The two outside passengers had to pedal hard whilst the middle person could sit back and relax-this became known as the princess seat and whoever sat there was the princess, we were all quite keen to take our turn at being the princess, including N!

 

                                                      A very welcome ice cream stop

 We took our bikes almost to the East end of the park, past the lagoon and xtreme skate park and then on to Bedok Jetty much to the amusement of the people fishing off the jetty.

 View from the jetty of MBS (Marina Bay Sands) and CBD (Central Business District) and hundreds of ships looking the other way...

By now it was early afternoon and pretty hot. We had seen some people swimming and decided to 'risk it' ourselves. With all the shipping activity just offshore I have my doubts as to how clean the water is so advised everyone to keep their heads above water and mouths closed.

It was very refreshing and to date we have all survived the experience

After 3 hours of happy cycling we returned the bikes and now really hungry looked for food. Not everyone in our group liked seafood and the 2 nearest eateries were Burger King and a Korean Charcoal Barbecue Restaurant- Ju Shin Jung. Burger King did not appeal so we chose the BBQ place and had an amazing meal. This picture is of the accompanements comprising (we thought) top row-some sort of bean curd with spicy sauce, sprouting beans (much bigger than mung beans), pancakes, fish flavoured strips of something. Bottom row; Kimchi (pickled cabbage), kang kong with garlic and sesame, spiced chunks of ? marrow, sliced pickled eggs with pickled olives. (if anyone has better knowledge of what these dishes were please let me know)

 Added to this we shared a griddled beef hot plate, griddled pork hot plate and mixed veg in hot stone. It was all very tasty and to finish we had water melon that had been carved into heart shapes-very sweet.
  So well exercised, relaxed and well fed we headed back to our respective residences for a shower (to wash off after our swim in the sea!) and nap.

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Later that evening we all met up again at the Singapore Botanic Gardens for a concert. These free 1 hour open air concerts are held regularly and N and I have been to a few already, they have all been good fun. There is usually a large crowd of families and friends who take a waterproof rug (the ground is often damp even if it hasn't rained for a while) and a picnic.

Papa J had very cleverly found a rather special bottle of wine!

The concert entirely of percussion music was really enjoyable with a very impressive troupe of drummers opening the show. Free balloons, stickers, snacks and chocolate bars were being given out all with SG50 printed on them-something I think we will see a lot of over the next year as Singapore celebrates it's 50th anniversary of independence.  

All in all a fun day and lovely to have good company - hopefully the J family will come to 

Singapore many more times in the future