Singapore Botanic Gardens

Last Saturday, our plan for our family day was to wake up very early to have a nice, peaceful walk in the Singapore Botanic Gardens as my DH promised to take some beautiful pictures for my blog (so sweet of him :P) but who knows..............it rained cat and dogs that morning.

We were worried that if it continued to rain, we might have to postpone or even cancel the trip. We waited and waited......thank God it stopped raining around noon.

We had our lunch and quickly headed to the Botanic Gardens since the sun started to shine brightly again. We bought some bread along to feed the turtles and fishes in the ponds.

After the heavy rain the weather was cool and it was good to walk around the park. The flowers were so bright and fresh......the butterflies fluttered from flowers to flowers ......the birds were chirping on the trees with their beautiful songs and bees were busy buzzing around ..... I felt so relaxed.

There were so many fishes in the ponds and some are so big. The children loves to watch the fishes swimming so near to them snatching the bread once it was thrown into the pond.

The children had a great time feeding the fishes and turtles....even the swans joined in to have some bread....soon the bread was gone and we regretted not buying more loaves of bread to feed them.

The children were reluctant to leave the ponds but we promised to buy them more bread (maybe 3 or 4 loaves) to feed the fishes the next time we visited the place again.

We proceed further into the garden and went to the National Orchid Garden. The Orchid garden spreads over 3 hectares of on the highest hill of the Gardens. It was opened by Minister Mentor Mr Lee Kuan Yew on the 20 October 1995, the most comprehensive collection of the tropical orchids around the world is the crown jewel of the Gardens.

This is Slipper Orchid which is on displayed now at the National Orchid Garden till 19 September 2008.

These exotic plants have seldom been given names to match their beauty. The Paphiopedilum, however, is a notable exception. The word Paphiopedilum was derived from the Greek word ‘Paphian’ which refers to the Roman Goddess Venus, and ‘pedilon’ which means slipper. This was how this unique orchid gets its common name, the Venus’ Slipper, Ladies Slipper or Slipper Orchid. The main characteristic responsible for the name and differentiating it from other orchids is the bizarre pouch-like structure, which is the lip or labellum of this orchid. There are about one hundred species of paphiopedilums spreading from South China, India, Burma, South East Asia, Philippines, and Papua New Guinea to the Solomon Islands. I so amazed by the orchids displayed here.....so many varieties, so many different colours and shapes.

Last but not least, this is Vanda Miss Joaquim, National Flower of Singapore. It is the hybrid between Vanda hookeriana and Vanda teres. It was named after Agnes Joaqium in whose garden the hybrid was orginated. It was selected as National Flower of Singapore in 1981.

The trip was tiring as we had been walking for about 3-4 hours but all enjoyed ourselves very much ;D. We will surely return to this place soon.

Thanks for dropping by :) and have a great week ahead!

God Bless.