For a longest time, I wanted to catch the lotus blooming at the Chinese/Jap garden across my apartment. It bloomed a few months ago while this choking haze blanketed the sky and I missed them again. Last weekend, we had a clear day, so I grabbed my camera and went to the garden hoping there were flowers left. To my disappointment, the big pond had been cleared but fortunately the small pond still had some flowers.
These are last remaining flower pictures that I have not posted from Garden By The Bay.  We purchased two tickets for flower dome and cloud forest when we visited flower dome a few months ago at discounted price. Cloud forest is forest garden at garden by the bay. The place looks like rain forest with waterfall, high elevated walkway,  evergreen tropical plants, moist fog/mist and flowers.
Last round pictures of flowers from flower dome. I hope they brighten your weekend.
This is another instalment pictures of what we found inside the flower dome. Besides flowers, we too can find cactus at the dome. Of course the cactus here are not as many in variety and as big as cactus grown naturally in open space desert.  Because cactus need most sun light and hotter temperature, they are placed closer to the dome glass roof here in flower dome.  Please enjoy.
Let me leave you with Pachelbel’s Canon in D piano cover played by my daughter. Have a great weekend.
I have been wanting to visit flower dome at garden by the bay, but I kinda have crowd phobia, which is why I avoided that place since it was opened a few years ago. Days after the Chinese new year, I asked my sis if she wanted to go there with me. I figured that fewer people would visit the dome on new year. True to what I thought the place was quiet and there were only a few visitors (mostly tourists) here and there. The place is big and once you step in you will be greeted by cactus and flowers after flowers which we could not have seen in the tropic. It was a delight to have seen so many flowers there. Here are some of the flower pictures that I took that day.
These pictures are from my Bali trip last year which I almost forgot to post. This is one of the museums that we visited that day. It was raining most of the day. The lighting inside the museum made it difficult to get good pictures. The museum was not big.  Artifacts found in the museum were not as many as we expected and there were pieces which in my opinion are quite difficult to relate. It would be better if there were some literature which accompanied those displayed pieces.  Nevertheless, I love those gates and buildings of the museum though.
This year Lunar New Year falls on the 19th of February which is today. I am here wishing all of you who celebrate lunar new year a very Happy New Year. May this goat year bring peace to the world.
As usual we had small reunion dinner last night. Both my brothers and their family did not come, so only the girls, my parents and nephew. The dinner table seemed getting emptier by year. We had steam boat dinner last night just like many other reunion dinner years before. This is the less trouble that mom had to prepare. We cooked whatever we wanted to eat ourselves on the dinner table. Anyway, Happy New Year Everyone.
These are the pictures from my Bali trip that I promised to post for you.  The information below is from Wiki as I know nothing about this Garuda Wisnu Kencana cultural park.
Mandala Garuda Wisnu Kencana, or Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK), is a 240 hectares private cultural park on the Bukit Peninsula at the southern end of the island of Bali in Indonesia, 15 minutes from Ngurah Rai International Airport. Bukit is a limestone plateau with Uluwatu to the west and Nusa Dua to the east.
It is devoted to the Hindu god Vishnu, and his mount, Garuda, the mythical bird who is his companion. Currently, the statue of Vishnu is 23 metres (75.5 ft) high, although the original plan was for a 146-metre (479 ft) gold-plated Vishnu riding Garuda on top of an 11-storey entertainment complex. Garuda wing span will be 64 metres (210.0 ft) across.  When it’s completed, it will be one of the largest statues in the world. The idea was not without controversy, and religious authorities on the island complained that its massive size might disrupt the spiritual balance of the island, and that its commercial nature was inappropriate, but some groups agree with the project, because it will make new tourist attraction over barren land.
I was told when the park is completed, there will be story telling script on those gigantic mountain walls at the entrance. Tourists will be able to read the story as they drive into the park. The barong show I posted a couple weeks ago was also one of the attraction in this park. Please enjoy and Happy Sunday!
I still have pictures from my Bali trip which I will post after I sort them out. Here are some of them. The most common barong dance in Bali is lion barong which is the symbol of good spirit.  It is probably the most well-known story telling dance. In addition to barong, there are also women and men who dance and play the traditional instrument. The story narrating the fight of good and evil and will end with the final battle between Barong and Rangda (queen of evil), with the victory of barong over rangda. Rangda runs away, the evil is defeated, and the celestial order is restored.
brushes and papers
brushes and papers 