Circle Line Discovery - Buona Vista -> Botanic Gardens -> Haw Par Villa

Went for the Circle Line Discovery with mum, Tecky and bf. Today is the one and only day that the public got to explore the 12 new stations (Caldecott, Botanic Gardens, Farrer Road, Holland Village, Buona Vista, One-North, Kent Ridge, Haw Par Villa, Pasir Panjang, Labrador Park, Telok Blangah and HarbourFront) for FREE! 

Stop 1 - Buona Vista (Interchange)

The hilarious circle line musical consisting of music, dance and comedy starring Irene Ang, Alaric Tay and Chua Enlai was held at 10am at the Buona Vista station so this is our first stop. It's also the stop nearest to us anyway. We arrived abit late so we did not get the chance to sit below the main stage, instead we were ushered to the side there to watch the musical from the big screens. 

Below are three videos which I've taken of the musical. 

First video featuring Mr Yam Ah Mee - The superstar from all the channels!! Introducing Caldecott station. So funny, cheers me up everytime I watched it! HAHAHA. Must watch the video till the end as we can see Yam Ah Mee and the rest of the cast joining in the Bhangra dance.

Second Video introducing Haw Par Villa station and a Chinese Opera at the end. 

The third video introducing Holland Village station and a Jazz song.

Stop 2 - Botanic Garden

The activity at the Botanic Garden station is for us to make our own origami flowers to bring home. 

Materials are all provided free of charge. Coloured papers, scissors, glitters, stick for the stem, etc. 

Step-by-step instruction was pasted on the table for us to follow but this lily is extremely hard to master. I can only do up till step 5. Even the friendly volunteers present there decided to teach us to fold hearts instead. LOL.

If you know how to fold it, it's actually very nice.

Bro ended up folding hearts. I give up hope trying but don't want to fold the heart. Bf is still trying to fold that Lily.

This uncle is even more PRO. He's folding a plane, no, it's a bird. Fly birdie fly~

Since I'm not interested in folding the heart and couldn't fold the Lily, and couldn't master the bird, I went to the other table and it's another set of instructions for another type of flower! 

The blossoms! 

All the kids (including me) learnt how to fold the blossom from this young lady in black. She's super helpful and friendly. Luckily, it's quite easy to fold this blossom.

Happy with my simple masterpiece. Haha.

Pei Fen from Radio station Yes 93.3 Fm. 

Exited from the station as we are going to have our lunch here.

While walking, bf is still trying to fold that Lily. Really very good spirit. 

Arrived at Adam Food Centre. It was opened since 1974 and Nasi Singapore have been there since Day One! An unlucky incident happened to me here. One bird is so good with it's timing and aiming, it dropped it's poo poo right on my leg!!! I was feeling something warm then and I thought it's the lady beside me who just came back with her food spill something onto me. After I saw that it's the bird's poo poo, I just scream and I think I frighten the two ladies sitting beside us. Zzz. Them and us immediately changed seat. 

With that my mood went down but wait a minute, bf manged to fold out the origami lily for me! Yay! So I was happy again. Hahaha. 

OMG!! Competing Nasi Lemak stalls operating side by side. Both stalls have the same equal long queue! In the end before the two queue diverge out, I picked on Selera Rasa Nasi Lemak. Tried to brainwash them to eat nasi lemak (so that I can ask them to queue for me. xP) but was unsuccessful. In the end, everyone had finished their lunch and I'm still queuing okay. Dotz. 

So, this is it! After queuing so long. My $5.50 nasi lemak. Well, it wasn't as fantastic as I've imagined it to be. Lesson learnt, don't joined in the queue when you have no idea what you are queuing for. Sometime, long queue doesn't always mean that thing is nice. It might be due to the stall assistant took very long to cook and prepare. 

Nice art works at Botanic Garden station. 

Farrer Road station

Just alight here to check out this astract art by Erzan Adam. The abstract lines symbolizes unity in art and the community.  

Stop 3 - Haw Par Villa

Here we spend the rest of the afternoon at the Haw Par Villa, which was formerly called Tiger Balm Gardens and immerse ourselves by walking through the statues that represented the rich Chinese legends and folklore. It's a truly educational tour since the last time I visited was when I was really really young and my memory left of here was that there used to be two water slides which is so fun to play with. Now, I make it a point to read the introduction at the signboard in front of each statue. I try my best, but the weather is so hot, so I have to take photos of them and read them at my leisure time like now as I blogged. 

We have the Living Buddha Ji Gong. He's very famous since there's always some TV show on him.

He's the Opium War Hero - Lin Zhe Xu

Goddess of Mercy

Cool.

Scary leh.

Very meaningful sentence which I agree totally. Translated to be "Virtue has it's rewards, evil its retributation. The payback is just a matter of time."

With that, we stepped into what Haw Par Villa is famour for, their 10 courts of hell! Basically, inside we see the depiction of where the souls are taken after death and the different punishments given to atone for the sins committed when alive.

First court of Hell : Yama : King Qinguang

Second Court of Hell : Yama : King Chujiang

Punishment includes being thrown into volcanic pit, frozen into blocks of ice or thrown into a pool of blood and drowned.

Third court of hell : Yama : King Songdi

The souls got their heart cut-out or tied to red hot copper pillar and grilled.

Fourth court of hell : Yama : King Wuguan

Souls are pounded by stone mallet or grounded by a large stone.

Fifth Court of hell : Yama : King Yanluo

Souls are thrown onto a hill of knives.

Sixth court of hell : Yama : King Piencheng

Souls are being thrown onto a tree of knives.

Seventh court of hell : Yama : King Taishan

Tongue being pull out or thrown into wok of boiling oil. 

Eighth court of hell : Yama : King Dushi

Intestines and organs are pulled our and body dismembered.

Ninth court of hell : Yama : King Pingdeng

Head and arms chopped off.

Tenth court of hell : Yama : King Zhuanlun

Here there is the "Wheel of Reincarnation" and the "Pavillion of Forgetfulness". After drinking the cup of magic tea from Men Po which on drinking, makes the souls forget their past lives. They then go through the "Wheel of Reincarnation" to be reborn either as human or animals.  

"Animals Farm"

Thanks to the Circle Line opening, I got a chance to go to places which used to be inaccessible. Circle Line connects us together.  

SMRT Circle Line Quick Facts (Adopted from the brochure)

* Route Length : 33 Km

* Total number of stations in operations : 28 (although the last station is CC29 at HarbourFront but there's no CC 18 which is rather strange)

* The SMRT Circle Line (CCL) is the first fully underground orbital line that links all Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) lines running into the city, offering inter-suburban connectivity.

* Each train has three cars, 148 seats and can take up to 931 passengers. The trains travel at speeds of up to 80km/hr.


SMRT Circle Line challenge (Adopted from the Circle Line Times)


1. Caisson piles dug by hand at Dhoby Ghaut station
To ensure the public's safety, 60 heroes worked deep underground to install Caisson piles by hand. It took them nine months to build seven Caisson piles.


SMRT Circle Line Tidbits (Adopted from the Circle Line Times)


"Dakota was given this name because on 29 June 1946, a Dakota aircraft belonging to the Royal Air Force Police with 20 non-commissioned officers on board, crashed near Old Airport Road (then Kallang Road) in a storm with no survivors. Dakota Crescent was named in commemoration of this disaster."


"During WWII, kent ridge was the site of the Battle of Pasir Panjang, one of the last and fiercest battles fought by the Malay Regiment against the invading Japanese army. Forts and tunnels still in existence at Labrador Park were used by the British Army."


"The name Pasir Panjang appeared as "Passir Panjang" in 1851. The Malay words literally mean "long sand" referring to the long, sandy beach that used to stretch along the coast all the way to Jurong River."


"Telok Blangah in Malay means "cooking pot bay", which describes the cooking pot shape of the bay."


"Holland Village was named after a person, not the country. His name is Hugh Holland, an architect who was among the early resident in the area."


"Botanic Gardens is the only botanic garden in the world that opens from 5am to 12 midnight every day of the year and does not charge an admission fee."