A bus stop in Singapore is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Or at least a place of shelter from sun and rain, and cleanliness, with polished marble benches to sit on and bollards. The bollards were added last spring after some bad driver in the city speeded and ran off the road […]
The pangolin is an ant-eating mammal with keratin scales all over its body – the only keratin-coated mammal there is. They are toothless nocturnal creatures that can curl themselves into tight balls. Sort of southeast Asia’s answer to the armadillo. I’ve seen pictures and sculptures of these creatures, but didn’t really believe they existed in […]
There are two traditional ornate gates to Nanyang Technological University, both inscribed in Chinese and with the date 1955. Neither is actually at an entrance to the university, but we’ll pass over that for now. They are both within hailing distance of the main campus and obviously point the way to the same direction. But […]
As part of the government effort to ensure survival of the species, or at least of the well-educated Chinese Singaporean portion of it, the National Institute of Education was relocated to Nanyang Technological University 13 years ago. A huge new campus was built for NIE, located in an old durian orchard just across the street […]
Epiphytes are plants that grow on trees; I don’t think they’re parasites, but they use the bark to gain a foothold and nutrients. The older trees at the NTU campus have really great collections of epiphytes on them. First, a tree with a nice birds’ nest fern in it: And then the next tree in […]
These blossoms just happened to land on the grass a few minutes before I passed on my walk this morning.
Here’s the man driving the combination golf-cart/vacuum cleaner this morning. There are two or three of these machines on campus, and they are driven by elderly men in sun hats. They get started before the traffic does, and their job is to clean the gutters of all the roads on campus. Too bad I didn’t […]
OK, the one good thing about the new fugly fence is that it provides a sense of scale. The gaps in between bars are about one inch wide and two inches tall, so figure out the size of this spider:
I know I’ve mentioned the hideous fence that’s going up around the campus to protect the YOG contestants – or maybe keep them from running amok in the local jungle. So since I complain about it, I just thought I’d show you how it looks: The view without the fence: Two views of the same […]
They’re all the same plant. They bloom all year in Singapore, and drop blossoms on the sidewalk constantly. If the spent blooms are swept up by 7:30 there are a few more on the ground by 7:45. I gathered a sample of newly-fallen flowers this morning so you could have a look at some of […]