MsE finally got in the Mommy-Daughter she had been requesting.

It's not often that MsE and I get time with just the 2 of us. We headed to Hort Park while MsC was at a class and MsI was home napping with Dad. The playground, a.k.a. the "Nature Playgarden," was a 10 minute straight walk into the park, but we found plenty to explore before we got there.

We started by counting turtles in the Koi Pond near the car park. Ms.E was next thrilled by the infinity pond overlooking the park. I thought it was pretty special too especially, in the late afternoon light. There were interesting metal sculptures spread throughout the first part of the park.

Lots of nice wide paths with ramps made this a very stroller friendly/accessible park. We were on foot though, so we got to explore along many of the smaller paths spreading off the main ones too. I just followed where MsE wanted to go while heading us gently in the direction of the playground. She took us on narrower and windier paths, and that's where we saw the most birds.

MsE pointed out the red sculpture above and was certain that it was the play sculpture talked about in one of our Singapore Storybooks of a dragon who is now unable to move, but tells stories to the children as they play on it in the park.

Heading down the garden path. We headed through some spots much narrower than this.

Once we got deeper into the park there were so many Plantain Squirrels. They're the ones with tails that look like feathers. We followed them along the palm branches. We watched the one below eating an orange coloured nut or seed. It took MsE a while to spot the zebra doves in the park. They're the smallest of the doves around here. While they stand out in the paths and manicured lawns at our home, they were well camouflaged in the park.

A Plantain Squirrel eating an orange coloured nut or seed.
2 zebra doves in the lower left corner. Their feathers look almost like stripes and they have grey-blue heads.

MsE would have been happy just wandering around the gardens, but we did discover the Nature PlayGarden so we spent some time there. The PlayGarden was spread out over 3 areas, so a lot of children could have played here. On a weekday just before dinner, we were the only ones there which suited us just fine. 2 of the zones were rubber bottomed. One zones was sand, which caused MsE to take off here shoes like usual. This causes a bit of a problem when we leave. The sand sticks to you feet because you are sweaty and doesn't brush off well because of the humidity.

The pirate ship
The tree house
The sand pit and climbing wall

The sand zone is where we found ourselves an ant trail to watch for a bit too. We could see about 15 feet of ants all in a row. MsE added some sand to their path to see what would happen, but the ants just found their way around and kept following along.

We were a bit rushed for time when we left. I thought we would take the bus the 2 stops back, but we were on the wrong side of the road. I still have a hard time remembering that traffic drives on the opposite side of the road to Canada. It looked like by the time we could find an overpass over the busy street we wouldn't be far from where we had to get off the bus, so after walking out of the park, MsE got a quick piggy back ride back to pick up MsC.