Botanical Gardens

On Thursday night two friends flew in to visit from Thailand. Since Singapore is so much more expensive than any of the other countries in Southeast Asia, my friends were on a relatively tight budget, thus we stuck to free, or almost free, activities.

First on the list was a visit to Singapore's Botanical Gardens.

The Gardens cover about 180 acres north of the city area. The Agri Horticultural Society started the gardens in 1859, but the colonial government eventually took over. Fortunately, the Singaporean government was wise enough to continue to support the gardens after independence. The park is now free to the public and open at most decent hours of the day (I think 5 a.m. to midnight).

Anyways, you can look the history up on your own. The point is that the gardens are great. And free.

For those of you who don't know, I have a little hobby of taking pictures of flowers, which I then use as backgrounds for my computer desktop. The botanical gardens gave me plenty of opportunities for new pictures.

I'm not sure of all the names. They may be completely wrong, so take them with a grain of salt.

Bauhinia Kockiana (?)

 Torch Ginger.

 Red Hibiscus.

 Not a flower, but a nice color. Part of the "evolution" trail. Not sure the picture does it justice.

 Don't know

 Hibiscus

Heliconia

 Heliconia again

 Another heliconia

 No idea...

Couldn't find a name for this that I trusted

Poinciana (?)

While I can't guarantee the names of most of these flowers, I thought they were great. I am excited to go back sometime on my own to just wander the gardens. I'm also planning on visiting the national orchid gardens, which does cost $5. After about 2.5 hours in the garden, though, my friends were ready to move on to other attractions.

Oh, and the gardens came well-equipped with turtles.