Poo For Thought !

A couple of days after reading one of the forward emails with the statement,

Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay, Mr. Tinaikar , had a point to make. 'Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place,' he said. 'And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels? In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here?'

I visited one of the parks in Singapore which had one of these sign boards, which confirms the statement made by Mr.Tinaikar. Dog owners of India, please keep an eye on your dogs. On a serious note, cleaning up your dog's poo is a mandate overseas, well if you dont clean it up you will have your lesson learnt and keep a keen eye on your dog's back everytime you take it to the street. But why is that not a case in India, dog owners just gives a whatever the dog poo deserves. No One can accuse me of this though, i was never allowed to own a dog at any stage of my life..

Castle Beach ~ East Coast Park

Castle Beach is a part of the East Coast Park. Mr. Alvin Lee was the founder of the "Castle Beach" primarily for the reasons of family bonding. I was also said that the Castle Beach runs a charity for under previleged childern which is indeed an excellent way of helping the society.

This is one of the many activities that goes on in the east coast park. Skiing,Skating,Cycling,Fishing(though i haven't found a single soul with anything like a fish) and lot of hawkers(eat outs) are some of the prominent places / activities around the park. I saw a dedicated team of people with uniform T-Shirts spending quiet a good amount of time in building these castles. If someone wants to the visit the park i would suggest them going around 4 PM which is when the castles are all built and in shape to view, i saw a professional photographer too making some pictures of the castles. The castle building team had brought their own meal and at the end of the day, they gulped some food to add on some calories which they had burnt through the day. Though they sweated out on a hot day, i saw happy faces when they had a good number of visitors for their castles. I really dont know if there was any family bonding, but it was a nice team building exercise. Corporates can take away a few tips from here, conducting their team building exercises mostly in a closed room for the heck of it is not much of a help.

Berlin Wall @ Bedok Reservoir

This is a portion of the Berlin Wall installed at the Bedok Reservoir, its quiet amazing to find out it's carried all the way from Germany to Singapore. This portion was part of the Berlin Wall which stood between West and East Germany till 1990, and was brought down marking the end to the cold war thus unity Germany. It was good piece of work, the artist work is appreciatable.

I visited this place on Sunday Evening 15th Aug 10, Indian Independence Day. Its not too far from where i live, half hour walk or a 5 minutes bus ride will take me here. Lot of activities go around this reservoir park ~ Jogging, Fishing, Cycling are a few notable ones. Nice place to spend a few hours over the weekend. Picture below that looks like a Silhouette,shows a person fishing in the lake, i was said you have good chance of getting fishes early in the morning when the sun rises rather than during the sunset. Fishes tend to get deeper into the lake when the sun gets out.

National Day Parade ~ 9th Aug 10

I started hearing about NDP from the 1st week of July, then i started doing a little googling which got me some more information on National Day. It is very similar to a Republic Day in India, which i have seen it in the tele when i was a kid ~ parades of troops, tanks, trucks, navy equipments,jets and fighter planes. Here i had an opportunity to see it directly, right through my eyes after 27 years of my life. I got one of the worst ever possible places to stand( it was hanging to a wall like a lizard :P ) and watch the parade. The tickets for the actual parade gallery was sold a couple of months back, which means by the time i entered Singapore the tickets for NDP were mostly sold and i never had a clue about this.

The show had parachute troopers, fighter planes, military troops, tanks, heavy artillery, marines, fire service, ambulance, dancing females and then the best of the lot "Fireworks". I heard that Singapore military is a pretty descent one, they do their drills with the NATO countries and the do their military purchases with the states. I have been to Big Ben @ London on a new year where there is fireworks also to edinburgh for a new year which has fireworks too. But i am sure this one i saw in Singapore is the best of the lot. Ofcourse the last time i saw a firework was 4 years back so we cant compare them, but the intensity and the way it was organised in Singapore was very nice indeed. A special mention on the fighter planes parade, the noise they create was awesome it had the effect similar to one which we see at movies. Fantastic, I would say !

It all finished at about 9 PM, got myself a fillet burger from KFC and started back home.

Rhino !

I visited the Singapore Zoo at Mandai lake road and though i managed to shoot a load of pictures, very few turned out to be descent enough to see one among them is what you see "The Rhino". Lesson Learnt : Dont borrow a friend's SLR, even though it looks fancy doesn't help you a lot unless you know how to use it, instead use your own Point & Shoot Cam.

 

Coming back to the Rhino, this is the first ever time i had a chance to look at the Rhino in real and it is indeed massive. If someone could visualize the Rhino from the movie "300", this one isn't any different and ofcourse the one in the movie had some chains wrapped around it. The one you see here is a white Rhino, and below are the different types of Rhino.  

• White Rhinoceros
• Black Rhinoceros
• Indian Rhinoceros
• Javan Rhinoceros
• Sumatran Rhinoceros

Reiterating on a everyone known statement "Save Wildlife, We have established ourself by increasing population at every possible chance, even though we cant put a stop to that, can be controlled by obvious means. And let some space for these wild animals, its fun watching them."