ねんどろいど の旅日記 (S.B.G)

Comrade Alafista and me went to the Singapore Botanic Gardens (SBG) on a hot Sunday afternoon to carry out our first ねんどろいど の旅日記 photo shoot. The sun was merciless; hot and sunny, but it provided excellent lighting for us.

Map directions on how to get there by foot

The Singapore Botanic Gardens is located along Napier Road and Tanglin Road. Being a lazy ass, I decided to look up the street directory, find the nearest MRT station and walk there instead of finding which bus to take. The walk isn’t very long, around 20 minutes from the heart of Singapore. The view there is a nice transition from shopping malls to greenery so it’s worth the walk if you don’t mind walking around 1.5 – 2km to your destination. You get to see the American Embassy, Gneagles and other interesting buildings. Not to mention the greenery along Tanglin (the path leading up to SBG) has very nice trees.

I would have whipped out my trusty D40 and taken the landscape but I was running late from our arranged meeting timing so I had to walk walk walk.

We were both late, but I arrived slightly earlier so I decided to take some pictures and set up my 2 little girls up for the photoshoot.
The last time I went to the SBG was almost a decade back and my memories were fuzzy, the only vivid memory I had was the swan lake. When I reached the Tanglin Gate entrance (yes there is more than one entrance), I was greeted with this huge gate, so if you are going there, just spot this gate, can’t miss it.

Alternatively you can spot these red flowers littered all around the entrance. They grow on trees which provided excellent shade from the sun as I waited for Alafista to arrive.

Kagami kills time by playing in the bushes. She spots a wilted flower that has lost all it’s redness and has turned brown.
I have no idea why flowers turn brown whey they wilt. Any budding botanist willing to share the reason behind it?

Comrade Alafista arrived a while later and he proceeded to give me one of his new name cards with his new site mascot printed on it. It’s a fox not a cat!

With his arrival, we could formally start our photoshoot. As you know, I brought Kagami and Kureha, he brought Nozomu-sensei and Asakura. Them nendoroids then joined the crowd and proceeded into the garden. It was a hot day too, but only Asakura was smart enough to bring an umbrella to fight the UV rays.

Looks like we are into a rough start. Sensei was quite unwilling to come I think.

But Asakura has her ways.

….

As usual, first daughter looks excellent in the sunlight and fallen leaves!

Close your eyes, feel the sun, breathe in the breeze

This has got to be one of my favourite shots of the day. It was quite tiring posing them with the sun beating down on us. Not to mention getting really close to the scorching ground to take the shot >_<!–

But the result is all worth it!

We reached the swan lake after some time, and took shade at the corner of the lake whist watching the swans. The swans seem to enjoy human company, though I don’t know if it is the prospect of being fed that draws them to the people. Either way, the swans are graceful and beautiful creatures indeed.

I don’t know what these tiny flowers are called, but a bouquet of them would look extremely good with nendoroids. Tiny, pretty and small; prefect for them!

Due to the extreme heat, we decided to take shelted and grab some cold drinks.
Comrade Alafista bought mineral water, while I settled for a Pocari Sweat.

Look who came with my purchase!

Kagami is thirsty!

On a hot day, a cold drink is all you need.

We took some shots of each other’s nendoroids at the shade. Sensei tries to look cool for the camera…

…but fails terribadly…

(^ω^)

A sundial at the middle of the park.
It’s around 3.30pm already. We have been at the park for almost 2 solid hours, but the heat makes it feel as though it has been longer than that!

My attempts at photo color manipulation with Kureha against a very nice green bush.

The leaves of this plant is purple in color. Kagami is amazed.

I should have swaped Kagami’s hands with Kureha’s. Would have prefered a reaching out pose instead!

There were some really tiny red flowers in the garden too. I wish I knew what the names were!

In any case, this is the Sundial Garden! A small place but the details are very nice. Which is what is important when you go to places like this, it’s not how much you cover and see, but what you see! To me, noticing the tiny details of the place is more important than walking the whole place and missing out of the small stuff!

Anyway, moving along, right on up the path from the Sundial Garden is the Bonzai area.
I love the bonzai area because we did not need so squat and bend down to take pictures. ^^

The nendoroids are having a great time too as you can see!

I was tempted to bring the pagoda home.

As we talked down the path after leaving the Bonzai area, we went into a small area with lots of catcus, which is called the Sun Garden.
Couldn’t resist taking the next few pictures, pretty sure you will laugh when you see them!

OUCH!

As I type this post, I am refering to the map which is beside me. It seems we missed out an area called “Vanda Miss Joaquim” which was just behind the Bonzai area. Vanda Miss Joaquim is Singapore’s national flower which is a type of orchid. It’s a pity and this reason alone makes me want to go back.

Anyway we continued to walk which ever direction the path led us to because at this point of time we were already quite exhausted. The trek isn’t as exhausting as Macritchie, but I only had 2 hours of sleep the night morning before and I had some strenuous physical training in the morning which ended with a 2.4 km run. So I was pretty burnt out!

We took a break at entrance of the Ginger Garden. You have to pay a fee to enter the Ginger Garden, and being supporters of open source, we refused to play any money. Instead, we sat around to regain our energy and Kagami went to play with the water fountain.

After our rest, we continued walking along Heliconia Walk.
Heliconia are these Yellow and Red flowers. Why do I know the names? It’s because there was a huge sign board that talked about the flowers.

Heliconias are related to gingers and bananas. Except for a few species found in the South Pacific, they are restricted to tropical America where the flowers, grouped inside colourful bracts, are often pollinated by hummingbirds. In Singapore, the native sunbirds take over the job. The brightly coloured sunbirds can often be seen visiting the flowers in Heliconia Walk.

I like them, very unconventional and uniquely shaped! Unfortunately we did not manage to catch any of the sunbirds!

I totally forgot what this was and did not take a picture of the description sign. They look edible though!

Actually I think these are frangipani flowers. I recalled their names and google image search and they look alike.

An except from Wiki on the Frangipani;

Plumeria is related to the Oleander, Nerium oleander, and both possess poisonous, milky sap, rather similar to that of Euphorbia. Each of the separate species of Plumeria bears differently shaped leaves and their form and growth habits are also distinct. The leaves of P. alba are quite narrow and corrugated, while leaves of P. pudica have an elongated oak shape and glossy, dark green color. P. pudica is one of the everblooming types with non-deciduous, evergreen leaves. Another species that retains leaves and flowers in winter is P. obtusa; though its common name is “Singapore,” it is originally from Colombia. Frangipani can also be found in Eastern Africa, where they are sometimes referred to in Swahili love poems.

Plumeria flowers are most fragrant at night in order to lure sphinx moths to pollinate them. The flowers have no nectar, and simply dupe their pollinators. The moths inadvertently pollinate them by transferring pollen from flower to flower in their fruitless search for nectar.

“Plumeria” species are easily propagated by taking a cutting of leafless stem tips in Spring and allowing them to dry at the base before inserting them into soil. They are also propagated via tissue culture both from cuttings of freshly elongated stems and aseptically germinated seed.

So they are actually called Plumeria. Sounds a lot like Primula!

Nendoroid Primula

Anyway, the girls look great with the Frangipani flowers! ^^

The sun was almost setting and we continued walking along the path. We were actually heading to a place called the Evolution gardens.

We reached there after sometime and were totally our of energy. The evolution gardens is actually an enclosed area with a linear path which has stuff to show you how plant life was formed since the beginning of time. We only managed to reach the first area before we decided to sit down for a really long time.

I guess everyone was tired, except these two.

Poor mini-kyouka…..

And we decided not to move into the Evo Garden and decide to head back since the sun was setting and the exhaustion was making us function at 5% capacity. We decided to leave the gardens via the Nassim gate and head home.

While we were walking home, I saw orange bougainvillea for the first time!

It was an extremely fun day although it was physically tiring even for me. This has probably got to be my most tiring photoshoot to date. I guess I’ve been in the shade too much for most of my other shoots that this brings about a whole new level of challenge. I love the place though and would not hesitate to go back. In fact I’ve suggested that we go back to cover the other 70% of the park which we have not covered. But once again, I am amazed that my little island country has such a pretty place. I’ve always thought that Singapore lacked anything beautiful scenery-wise, but every photoshoot rebuked that belief. I guess photography makes me appreciate my surroundings more@!

I would be going to STGCC next week on the Friday(13th) and on the Saturday(14th), so that we can continue chapter 2 of the Travelogue on Sunday(15th) ^^
As suggested by comrade Dcal, local readers who love figures ranging from dolls, nendoroids, figmas and what not, should probably meet up and go together. So far I would probably be going alone on Friday and with comrade Maverick on Saturday (if he is free). I would like to meet up with other people and expand my network! So if you are interested in meeting up on Saturday (14th Aug) at STGCC, drop a comment here or tweet me @kodomut or leave a facebook message on my wall.

That being said, which photos do you love best in this shoot!