Losing Bidadari

I admit to being pretty tired at work on Thursday evening but it was only for 2 sessions and I'm not sure the students were aware. 
On Friday morning I met Heather as arranged for a walk in Bidadari. Sadly, we were confronted with fences and earth moving equipment as the destruction of this site proceeds in earnest now. When the new town development at both the Christian and Muslim cemeteries here was announced in 2012, the green community and nature lovers were up in arms against the plans. Unfortunately the area chosen for the town park by the URA is more open and not where most of the birds are found. A Facebook page “Saving Bidadari for the Birds and People” was started to bring attention to the diversity of the place. No less than 155 species have since been recorded there. Many are globally threatened species which make their way to the same bush every year during migration. The Nature Society (Singapore) and its Bird Group then drew up a proposal to keep the larger part of the Muslim cemetery as a parkland for the estate. The Bird Group conducted a GPS mapping and survey of migrant species during the 2012 autumn migration period to find out where the migrants spent their winter and stop over.

They produced an alternative proposal which has helped to review the location of the town park. While it is not exactly where the bird group wanted it to be, the denser portions of the park will be kept untouched as a natural sanctuary for those residents who prefer the wilder greenery. A new lake will be created on the other Christian Cemetery side to add a new water habitat to the park. Hopefully this will attract more water birds.

It was very disturbing to see the destruction but one highlight was a first sighting of the Blue_crowned Hanging Parrot. I didn't have my resident photographer with me so these are compliments of Google.

When I got home I found Eric cooking up a Massaman curry for dinner so after work we came home to enjoy that. Saturday and Sunday seemed longer and harder than usual. Perhaps it was because we had been away earlier in the week or more likely because it was hump week. 6 down, 6 to go to the mid year break. After work Sunday a number of us went to Saturday House but I was so tired I just ate and went home to bed. I had set myself some goals as curriculum leader to be finished by the end of the week and it made for a pretty busy time. I got there with the help of some colleagues.

This week the Monday walkers were lead through Bukit Brown Cemetery by June, who works at Kovan with us, but also volunteers at the Peranakan Museum. The volunteers had recently been taken through the cemetery and June was keen to share what she had learnt with anyone interested. April is the grave cleaning month so this is a really opportune time to visit. Not only did we enjoy learning more about the grave sites and local culture but it is also an excellent bird watching site because it has been closed since the 70's and the jungle has been encroaching ever since. Unfortunately they are building an expressway through one section of it, but it is a huge tract of land with more than 70,000 graves, something like 5000 of which have had to be exhumed for this project. Many famous Chinese pioneers were buried at Bukit Brown and June showed us that of Lee Kwan Yew's grandfather, who wasn't famous at the time but certainly rich, and as a result lays right on the top of the hill. Most of the graves are Hokkien and in the semi circular shape which represents a comfortable armchair for the ancestors. They are usually guarded by two lions but may also have angels, keeping all options covered. 

A pair of Sikh guards are found at the wealthier ones, the bigger the better and one pair stand over 2m tall apparently. We didn't see them, but this one below was almost life-sized. He was watching over the husband and wife in the graves top right. The elaborate design here included channels for rainwater collection that then spouted out of the mouths of fish and into a reservoir where the koi fish swam. Below this grave, just down the hill their son is buried. They had purchased a huge plot, perhaps expecting that further generations would be buried here until the announcement of the cemetery's closure brought that to a halt. The grave in the image below holds a husband, wife and concubine. The concubine bore the children but their names are also listed under the wife's headstone because apparently she was very good to them. 

We enjoyed a sleep in on Tuesday and then tackled the housework which had been rather neglected recently. Motivation to get this done was that in the afternoon a number of friends were coming over to watch a movie that someone had bought while on a trip to Laos. The film was called Chang, a silent film about a poor farmer in Issan, nowadays in Northeastern Thailand. The raw footage captures the daily struggle for survival of a farmer and his family in the jungle amidst leopards, tigers and elephant stampedes. Filmed in 1927 it was a silent movie and very quirky. After the movie, which we watched in our lounge since no one else has a dvd player and tv, we went across the road for a simple hawker meal afterwards. 

Kym and Geoff arrived on Thursday. I first met Kym when we worked together in Sandy's team as ILT's travelling all over the Top End helping teachers with ICT. Geoff and Eric both worked as Maths Consultants in Curriculum Department in Darwin but at different times. Later he became Eric's Assistant Principal at Humpty Doo and they made a good team together.  We went to Jamie's Italian at Vivo City then on to Chinatown which included visits to the Buddha Tooth Temple and the URA Centre as well as the busy Pagoda Street, before we had to come home and head to work. This week is parent teacher interviews so very busy. 

On Friday we took them to Promenade and walked across the Helix Bridge to Marina Bay Sands then through the hotel to Gardens By the Bay. There were fellows on belay cleaning the windows!

It was very hot so we limited ourselves to the Flower Dome which is celebrating Tulipmania at the moment. Gorgeous.

Then we returned through the supertrees to the hotel and went up to Ce La Vi on the 57th floor to see the residents enjoying the infinity pool on the skydeck and the panorama. Stunning, never disappoints. 

They had to leave while we were at work but we didn't come home to an empty house. Luckily for us, Jenni and Glenn arrived before that and we shared dinner at our local hawker.