duku langsat in lim chu kang

i paid $3.80 a kilo for the langsat fruit at sheng siong supermarket and$5.00 a kilo at a fruit stall in geylang. however, if you know where to go, you can find this fruit growing in abundance by the roadside in a certain part of singapore. whether it is unlawful to pick them, i am not so sure.

the duku and langsat are closely related members of the same botanical family (meliaceae), and are very similar fruits.

the duku is normally larger than the langsat. they grow in clusters with a leathery skin. the duku has a golden brown colour; the langsat is more of a cream color. (brown langsats are over-ripe.) gentle pressure on the top (stem end) of the fruit will cause the skin to split, making the fruit easy to peel. the skin of the langsat contains a sticky latex which is annoying but not harmful. the duku does not have this latex sap, and is considered a superior fruit for that reason.

the interior of each fruit contains 5 or 6 segments which are very much like the segments of a small grapefruit. the flesh is sweet and juicy, and tastes much like a very mild, sweet, grapefruit. some segments may contain small, bitter seeds. do not bite into them. there is no harm if you swallow the small seeds.

there is so much on some of these trees that you can easily harvest ten kilos of the fruit at one go. the smaller sized fruit tends to be sweeter and some of them are seedless.

when we were young, we used segments of the skin of the duku as ammunitions to shoot at each other. we would have a rubber band between our thumb and forefinger. placing the segment of the duku skin against the rubber band, we would pull it towards us before releasing it at our target. if shot at close range, you could end up with a stinging pain.

roadside tree - meninjau

someone in terengganu lamented that he could no longer find the meninjau tree growing by the roadside. he should come to singapore and i would be able to show him a few roads, in different parts of singapore, lined with this type of trees.

the meninjau (gnetum gnemom) is a columnar tree, possibly native to singapore but cultivated here for many centuries. the gnetums are a botanical oddity. they are gymnosperms, like conifers and cycads, but vegetatively seem much more similar to typical flowering plants particularly in possessing ‘normal’ leaves rather than needles or fronds.

gnetum gnemom is cultivated in kampongs throughout southeast asia not for its ornamental but for its economic value, particularly for its edible leafy shoots and ‘fruit.’ the latter can be made into a sort of flour most famously used to prepare the fried crackers known as keropok or embing.

meninjau trees are naturally columnar, with short side branches coming out almost horizontally from the main trunk. the glossy foliage and strong shape of the tree make it suitable for use in landscaping. several roads in singapore are successfully planted as meninjau avenues. male trees (meninjau trees come in separate sexes) are better for roadside planting as they do not drop squashy seeds.

along certain lanes in lim chu kang, i have come across whole families, usually malay, harvesting the ripe fruit. they will go from tree to tree to collect the red fruit. sometimes, they even pick the yellow ones.

disused buildings at dairy farm road

i followed the bike trail at dairy farm nature reserve till i came to a barrier. there, i came across a group of bikers taking a break. between the two barriers is an old and narrow road. i was not sure where it would lead to. i decided to take a right. i came upon two abandoned buildings. one was a normal residential building but the other one seemed to have a long hall. could this be the old dairy farm?

the first disused building was about 400m from the barrier. it would appear that it had not been occupied for quite sometime. however, the inside of the building had been swept as there was not much litter - no dead leaves. there were two wells outside and there was evidence that someone had been drawing water from the wells.

the second building, which appeared to be a residential building, was on higher ground. there was a yellow signboard with the number '8' in black on the path leading to this building. it had been vacated for sometime because the whole place was overgrown with weeds and other plants.

there also seemed to be a substation nearby, with the pub logo still visible on the door.
as i was walking back to where the barrier was, i met a troop of scouts. there must be at least forty of them. a npark vehicle was following this group. a lady alighted from the truck. from what i could see, she must be the teacher in charge of the scouts.

i decided to follow the road out. since the truck had come in that direction, it had to lead to some main road and the entrance. sure enough, i found myself at 100 dairy farm road. it was a private road.

i was to learn, not long later, that this area would be developed into a park, an extension of the bukit timah nature reserve. no, the building with a long hall was not the old dairy farm. it was actually a warehouse.

the old warehouse would be developed into classrooms and a visitors' centre while the residential unti would become the rangers' station and volunteers' lounge.

kitesurfing in singapore @ changi

while driving along changi coast road i caught sight of some parachute-like objects in the sky. i turned into the car park at coconut grove and saw this group of men and one woman having a whale of a time surfing and flying a huge kite at the same time.

kitesurfing or kiteboarding is a blend of surfing, water skiing and kite flying.the inflatable power kite usually comes with three sets of strings attached. the surfer has to wear a harness with one of the controls for the strings hooked to a carabiner.

before he can get off the ground, the surfer has to use an air blower to inflate 5 to 7 tubings before he can use the kite. he usually has a spotter or launch partner to help him with the strings so that they do not get entangled.

watching them at it, i realise it is not easy to pick up this sport on your own. you need to take lessons from a qualified instructor. these lessons - usually spread over 2 days - will set you back about $400. first, you have to learn how to manoeuvre the strings to control the kite. next, you have to get used to using the kiteboard or wakeboard while manipulating the strings of the kite.

you need to spend quite a tidy sum of money if you want to take up this sport. to get a set of kite and board, i think you need to cough out at least $1000. then there are other accessories which you may want to get, like half gloves and a helmet.

subsequently, i came across kite-surfers when i visited st kilda's beach in melbourne. there were quite a number of them having a swinging time at the bay.

the mangosteen fruit

i have seen all the other fruit trees bearing fruit but not the mangosteen. now, i know why. the mangosteen only starts to bear fruit when it is about ten years old. the trees that i see growing by the roadsides are definitely not more than five years old.

the mangosteen is the size of a mandarin. the outer skin is up to 8mm thick and rich in tannic acid, which makes the fruit insect resistant.to open the fruit, cut through the skin only, and lightly pull and twist the fruit apart. experienced mangosteen eaters use their thumb to pry out the dried flower parts (sessile stigma) and then break the fruit open.

about a third of the fruit is edible and this part consists of 4 to 8 white to pinkish juicy segments. the precise number is indicated by the remnant flower parts on the front of the shell.a greater number of segments reduces the chance of seeds. seeds can be boiled or roasted and eaten. the fruit's taste is delicate, sweet-acid, and the pulp seems to melt in the mouth.the fruit will keep for a few days without refrigeration. storage at 10ºC is ideal and extends shelf life to about 20 days. refrigeration causes cold damage. to minimise this, wrap fruit in newspaper and store it in the upper part of a refrigerator, but away from cooling coils. freezing the fruit whole is also satisfactory.trees are very slow growing and rarely fruit before they are ten years old.

additionally, the cultural requirements are stringent, further reducing the supply of fruit. the fruit has to be harvested by hand.

care must be taken to keep the latex or juice of the mangosteen away from clothes. once stained, it is very difficult to remove the dye.

the fruit is going at $3.00 a kilo at sheng siong supermarket and about $4.00 a kilo at most other fruit stalls. when buying the fruit, if given a chance to pick and choose, i will go for the smaller fruit with more segments.

when i first started eating mangosteen, i remember paying five to ten cents for a fruit. today, each fruit costs about thirty cents.

the mangosteen finally started bearing fruit in 2008. however, like most of the fruit found growing at lim chu kang, the mangosteens did not get to see the light of the day; they were harvested even before they were ripe.

nature walk from rifle range rd to kg chantek

from rifle range road, there is a short walk, slightly more than 1km, through the quiet secondary forest to kampong chantek. there are fruit trees along this trail and so you have the nangka trail and the durian loop. there are other fruit trees although they do not have trails named after them - there are rambutans and star fruit trees.

the well-marked trail takes you through different terrains, including a meandering stream, before you re-appear at the end of jalan kampong chantek. here, you will come face to face with the fence that is the boundary of the murnane service reservoir.

for those who are more energetic and who have the time, there is a longer walk that will take you all the way to the tree-top walk at macritchie. from murnane to macritchie is a distance of more than 9 km. remember to factor in the return journey, so making it a 18km trek.

if you take the other trail, the kampong trail, it will lead you all the way to the visitor's centre at bukit timah nature reserve.

there is a car park at rifle range road where parking is free but the barrier is supposed to come down at 7.00 p.m. this means that if you reach the car-park after dark, you may have to leave the car there overnight.

during the durian season, you may sometimes see a personnel from nparks stationed near the trail. he s not there to stop you from picking the fallen fruit; he is there to ensure that durian hunters do not camp in the forest and light a smal fire to ward off the mosquitoes.

some sea activities at east coast park

i was at east coast park to enjoy the sea breeze and to watch the actions taking place in the sea. i was near the national sailing centre. i could see that sailing is catching on with the young in singapore. saw at least sixty to eighty sail boats out in the sea, tacking and jibbing along the stretch fronting the east coast park. i was trying to explain to my friend that in sailing, as in driving, there are certain rules to follow.

some people mistakenly think that a sailboat always has the right-of-way over powerboats. a sail boat does have the ROW over a powerboat unless the sailboat is overtaking the powerboat. a sail boat must also keep out of the way of large vessels.

when two boats are at risk of colliding, the boat that has the other on its starboard must keep out of the way.

after watching kitesurfing at cathy's jetty, off car park 6, windsurfing does not appear to be as appealing as before. however, could see that when the sail caught the wind, the windsurfer could go really fast.

i have always liked to relax at east coast park, especially, at places away from the maddening crowd. however, i avoid certain stretches of the east coast park because of the crowd.

the daily scoop at sunset way, clementi

when ivy came back in january 2007 for a one-week visit, i had wanted to take her to this ice-cream cafe at sunset way, clementi. because of her very brief stay and the fact that she had her own programmes most of the time, i did not get the chance to do so. had taken ida there once but did not try the ice cream then.

the daily scoop offers a variety of alcohol-flavoured choices, together with other favourites like fruit or coffee. i have tried the lychee martini, the strawberry, the chempedak and the chocolate. also tried the set, where you get a piece of freshly baked wafer topped with a scoop of ice cream for $5.20.

to save money when i am buying for two persons, i will go for the double scoops, in flavour of our choice. this way, it is cheaper than buying two single scoops.

the reason for my wanting to let ivy try the place is that the owner, melissa phey, learnt to make her ice cream in melbourne. you can actually watch the ice cream being created if you drop by the place between 1pm and 7pm.

went again with ivy and her melbourne friend fawn to daily scoop for the ice-cream. tried their new creations - mango passion and tangerine sunrise. our favourite is still the lychee martini.

parking is free within the compound of the building. each time i go there, i am able to find a parking space. these days, it is becoming more difficult to get a lot because of the presence of cold storage supermarket.

the boulders of punggol beach

punggol which is spelt “punggul” in malay refers to the action of hurling sticks at the branches of fruit trees to loosen the fruit from its stem. it also refers to a place where fruit and forest produce are sold wholesale.in the past, punggol was used for rubber planting, poultry farming and pig rearing until poultry and pig farming were phased out from the 1970’s.

punggol end was the place to go to for seafood in the past. there were a number of eateries near the end of the narrow, windy road where two bus services used to terminate. i think they are going to revive the past. i saw a ura signboard that says the area has been earmarked for food and beverage developments.

i was at punggol end for my morning walk. again, i seem to be venturing to places where others do not tread. at punggol beach, during the entire walk, i was the solitary walker. i did meet other people - three cleaners collecting wood pieces from the boulder-strewn beach and an angler trying his luck near the punggol river.the boulders are actually planted there. it is not like they came from that area. it is not like they have tumbled into the sea from somewhere nearby. you can see that some of them have been carefully (painstakingly) laid out to form a kind of platform or steps.

here is what someone, on the internet, speculated about the presence of such boulders:
why is punggol beach covered by boulders artificially? some years ago, there was news that an angler at punggol beach was trying to dig for worms to be used as fish baits. but instead he dug out a human skull. since then the government has paved the whole beach with many heavy boulders. this act is weird as the beauty of a sandy beach is fully covered. but it is suspected to be a purpose of stopping citizens from discovering more human remains from there.

dragonfly and green bottle fly

my interest in dragonflies was aroused when i saw the tiger dragonfly in victor's blog. before that i used to think that there were about two species of dragonflies in singapore. when i surfed the internet to find out more about dragonflies in s'pore, i was amazed to find out the range of wonderful species found in s'pore.

dragonflies are normally found near places where there is water. in my kampong, the dragonflies would be seen darting around near the monsoon drains. once in a while we would catch one but we usually released it because dragonflies are not much fun to play with.

the green bottle fly, like the blue bottle fly, was regarded as dirty and a nuisance. it was too big to be food for our fighting spiders, so we did not bother to catch or kill it.

khatib bongsu in yishun

i had tried to locate this place unsuccessfully a few times. once, i went to the area near springleaf at upper thomson and thought that i had found the place. i remember going to this nature area many years ago with my friend and his brother's family. we were there to collect large clams in the bed of a muddy stream.

today (3 april 2007), i drove to yishun avenue 6, parked my car in the housing and development board (hdb) carpark beside northview primary school and crossed the road to the entrance of the track. there was a man manning the barrier but he did not say anything when i walked past.

as usual, i did not meet another person during my entire walk. i did come across two stray dogs. it seems that people tend to abandon or dump their vehicle in remote places. i came across this truck that was left by the side of the track. it had a season parking label for a yishun avenue 3 carpark and a registry of vehicle (rov) tax disc that would expire at the end of the month.



saw two wooden structures with zinc roofs, could hear voices but did not see anybody. there was a fishing pond beside one of these structures. as i was walking out, i saw the shells of the clams by the side of the muddy stream. this means that people have been going to that place to dig for clams in the mud and in the mudflats around the mangrove area.

up to the last days of its existence, the fishing pond was still open for business. by now, all the structures would have been demolished and the last few occupants would have moved out.

when i last tried to visit the place in september 2008, the track that used to lead to the fishing ponds was obliterated by vegetation. i had no choice but to turn back, aborting my plan to see if the ponds were still around.