Gardens By The Bay & a little bit of Johor Bahru

Valerie Lee Tong
Aug 10, 2017
5 min read

For The First Time!

After finishing my final semester of my Diploma Course and the end of my Diploma Graduation Show, definitely a small trip to pamper myself is a must! I decided to go for a 4 days 3 night trip on the 4th - 7th Aug 2017 to celebrate my Johorian boyfriend's, Des, birthday.

This was also my first time travelling by plane all by myself! Am was so excited, curious of who will be sitting next to me and worried about my blur-ness at the same time. I was glad I was able to find my way and coincidentally saw 2 New Zealanders that I met during my exhibition show at Sunway Pyramid, such a small world after all. At the end when I found my seat & sat down, I looked out the window as the plane depart, the view was so breath taking that . . . all worries just fade away instantly and somehow, I felt a little braver than before after this experience . . .

Gardens By The Bay, Singapore

After meeting Des's parents on the first day (which I guess . . . went quite well?), they decided to bring us to Gardens By The Bay on the second day, the place I wanted to go so badly after so long! Before beginning our journey to Singapore, we took our breakfast at a near by restaurant called "Good Coffee" at Kulai which you know, obviously, what is their signature drink and definitely I had to try out their highly recommended white coffee haha. They even sell packets of "Roasted Premium Hainanese White Coffee". I don't really know how a good cup of coffee taste like so . . . to me it's either okay or "I definitely wouldn't want to drink that again", this one was okay for sure. Their food . . . well, it was nothing really special, it was just like other typical "high class" kopitiam normally offered.

Flower Dome

We began our 1 hour journey to Singapore, driving through the roads of Singapore, I wonder how they manage to take care of the place so well! The trees were well taken cared, greener and healthier than Malaysia's. It was a short journey but it was enough to wow me especially their architecture design. We reached Gardens By The Bay at early afternoon, got our tickets and went into our first stop which was the Flower Dome

The first thing that remind me of this place was definitely the weather from Cameron Highlands. The cool temperature (23°C - 25°C) was suitable for variety of flowers and trees to grow in this building, and do you know? This building is the largest glass greenhouse in the world as listed in the 2015 Guinness World Records!

There were also sculptures being displayed in the dome, created and designed by renowned artist. I definitely recognized some of the sculptures, the style and the content of them, although I couldn't recalled who are they but I know I've studied them before from my History of Art.

Cloud Forest

Just next to the Flower Dome was another similar architecture called the "Cloud Forest". There was a huge mountain covering with plants and trees, while man-made waterfall create a moist humid environment . Every 2 hours there will be mist releasing to refresh the plant. We made it to watch the 4pm time and the view was breath-taking!

There are more to see, taking the elevator all the way up to see the view of the waterfall, walking down slowly using the canopy walk that were build on top of the trees below, Crystal Mountain that were filled with knowledge of how crystals were formed, and you'll end your journey with a walk through the Secret Garden and the Cloud Forest Gallery.

THE SUPERTREE!

Now comes to the iconic part of Gardens By The Bay! The Supertree Grove, but before getting there, we took a 30 minutes audio ride to pass some time, as the light show only starts at 7.45pm. At around 6.30, we started to line up for the OCBC Skywal. While lining up, there were description explaining the reasons of building these Supertrees, I only understand that they are used to harvest solar energy . . . other than that . . . I don't really understand the rest of their functions . . . Anyway, here are the photos that I took when I was up on top at the skywalk!

We continued to wait there as it was just another 30 minutes until the light show starts, the place started to become crowded as many were grabbing spots to watch the light show all together. Lights from the Supertree started to glow as the time of the show gets closer and closer! Finally at 7.45pm, the whole place was in darkness for 3 sec (Dramatic effect hahaha) and the trees started to light patterns as the music starts. How's the view? Romantic . . .

3rd & 4th Day at Johor

3rd day was just a lazy day, hanging around at his home, it was his birthday so we ended up doing nothing on that day, just relaxing at home watching tv. At night, we went dinner at a Japanese Restaurant and his sister bought balloons and cakes for him. I did a resin painting for him and delivered to his house on Thursday to give him a surprise!

The next day was funny, before going back to KL, Des and I went for a little road trip around Johor Bahru to visit the places that I wanted to go. First was the Johor Hindu old Glass Temple, one of the state's attraction. This temple was built in 1922 and at least 90 per cent of the temple is embellished by a mosaic of red, blue, yellow, green, purple and white glass, and inside there were sculptures of Religious Figure. Arulmigu Sri Rajakaliamman Glass Temple is the name of the temple. I was dissapointed that the temple was closed as I thought I couldn't go in during the prayers time in the morning, but actually, they only open during the prayers time and closed during the rest of the day.

Laughing at ourselves we went to our next destination which is the Johor Bahru Chinese Heritage Museum, and to my surprise. . . IT WAS CLOSED TOO! Lesson learned, always check the opening time of the place before going hahaha. Anyway, I'm still glad I was able to visit this old town filled with old designed buildings. It really does give this antique feels to me.

We went back to his home after having our lunch there at a pan mee stall . . . took a short rest and just nice it was time for me to fly back to KL. It was definitely hard to say goodbye to Des because I'll only get to see him after 2 weeks . . . but all in all, I really enjoyed this 4 days 3 nights trip with his family and definitely one day I'll come back for a trip around Johor . . .since all the places I went at that time were close . . .