This one's for the birds
I was right. Walked almost 5 hours today with a lot less to see. I visited the east bank of the Canal Zone in hopes of getting good shots of birds which I could barely catch at maximum zoom from the west bank. The kingfishers below let out a hyena-like shrill and always managed to fly off just before I get a chance to take a picture. Tiny yellow humming birds were a lot less shy and preferred this rambutan look-a-like tree on the west bank were the joggers were. Caught a pic of only 1 of 3 drinking from the flowers of the same plant on Thursday.
Another small bird, a sandpiper I think, always let's me get within a couple of metres, waits for me to adjust my shot, then flies just out of camera range, leading me further and further away from the direction I want to go in. It also has an irritating habit of bobbing its head and doing a little dance everytime it lands, as if to celebrate the feat of having eluded me. The lone heron in these parts was "engaged" by a small bird, which latched on to its rear like a fighter plane as they bobbed and weaved as if in a dog-fight- the heron was a good 20 times bigger! A white egret and an eagle out at sea flew majestically overhead BUT I could never get anything better than blurry long range shots, if anything at all. Gonna need a better camera. Wonder if the cheap National Geographic one on sale at Cold Storage counters is still available. Best animal shots I got were of lizards way too confident of their camoflague for their own good. I guess the reason why most birds prefer the east bank was because people like me usually stuck to the civilised west bank-They all flew there when I switched banks.
Well, at least I bagged a large feather for a souvenier. Too bad there was no way to walk further along the coast. The entire Sungei Simpang and Khatib Bongsu areas seems completely out of reach. A concerned canal zone regular also warned me never to go to the east bank again- he says the protected zone started at the banks of the canal and not the thick vegetation just beyond as I thought. According to the Street Directory, there is no access to the coast from here on until the mouth of the now sealed up Sungei Seletar reservoir at Yishun Ave 1. If that's true, the next stretch might well be Punggol Beach as I don`t think I can get access to the Jln Kayu Seacoast (Seletar Camp). Guess the only good way of exploring the northern shore is by boat.
I was ready to throw in the towel as I trudged back along the canal to get a drink at the coffee shop at the junction of Canberra Link/Yishun Ave 2 and Yishun Industrial Park A. There were 2 pieces of interesting bonsai-like furniture outside but it seems Northern Exposure was coming to an abrupt end. As I thumbed through the Street Directory, I discovered something strange. According to this 2007/2008 version, Admiralty Rd East continues parrallel to the coast after it interesects Sembawang Rd right next to Crab Village. It supposedly crosses the canal and carries on until it ends at Yishun Ave 9 near the ITE. I`ve been taking buses to this area for 20 years and remember Admiralty Rd East ending at the junction with Sembawang Rd, even during the days when there was a kampung here (and many other places in Singapore). The supposed path of the road was blocked by plateaus, the canal, thick jungle and swamp. There did not seem any reason to build a new section either. I noticed that stretch was represented by dotted rather than solid lines. Still, there was absolutely no sign of its remains or any sign of impending road building a good year after the directory was published. The road supposedly ran south of a huge carpark at the end of Yishun Industrial Park at Ave 7, so off I went in search of it. Saw this set of stone lions outside a factory. Can you spot the difference between them (click for a full-size pic)?
At the end of Ave 7, I came across a large workers' dormitory and the carpark but absolutely no sign of Admiralty Rd East. There was a slope at the back of the carpark for lorries. One corner led to the protected area which started from the east bank of the canal. Standing atop this slope just outside the training ground, I saw an old road running parallel to the coast. If this was Admiralty Rd East, then the map on the Street Directory was mistaken. It ran north, not south of the carpark.
This looks intersting but it was getting dark and my batteries were dying out. Resisted the temptation to wander into the training area I had unintentionally strayed into earlier and tried to pick up the trail at Yishun Ave 9. It was pitch black by the time I reached it but there was no sign of Admiralty Rd East, only a worksite cum workers' quarters where its terminus was suppossed to be. Found a few HDB blocks with great views of the Johor skyline. Maybe I`ll return here during daylight to see if I can shed any more light on the missing road before I proceed to the Sungei Seletar (or the Lower Seletar Reservior as they call it now) sector.
Took a few shots of the moon from 5pm. This reminded me of a great module I took in year one under Helmer Aslaksen. Heavenly Maths was well designed as a course in cultural astronomy (more concerned with what mortals stuck on earth can see and less with where earth was situated in the universe). In Singapore, moons that appear in the sky during daylight hours are always top-crescent (the missing or unilluminated parts are at the bottom). At night, our new or crescent moon always appear to be a slanted bottom-crescent and never the left crescent as in our national flag. Check out this link for more:http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/teaching/flag.html
This was a great module. We learned to calculate holidays using Chinese (Ching Ming follows the Solar, not the Lunar calendar), Muslim (the Muslim year is 11 days shorter than the ang-moh one), Indian and Jewish calendars and the only formulae we needed were all in primary school arithmatic or geometry. Most of the courseware is posted in full detail online- very useful and exciting. Yours truly did a project on the Moon with two techno wizards in Year one which is still featured amongst those of latter batches. This course was one of the best I took, taught by one of the best at NUS. The website is so good you can actually teach yourself this stuff.
Still having problems with blog software. Like Joanne said, kids have moved on to Facebook and other newer trends. Still remember how an American Chinese girl couldn`t believe I was still using a pager in 2002. Haha. Guess I`ll still be playing catch-up for some years.
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