The Hive

While looking for a parking place for our visit to Yunan Garden on NTU campus, we drove to the Hive, which is next to carpark Q.

The Hive is the building for learning hub south at NTU. The name comes from the building's architecture - a hive like structure. The building is open all the time, we went into the building and climbed all the way to the top floor level 3 despite the fact that the building is 8 floors tall. The first first 5 stories are named B5 to B1, then L1 to L3. 

The Hive at NTU

There is no windows to the building, we suspected that it had an atrium in the center and it does. We also guessed that the building was for social science and humanities, and indeed it is for those disciplines. There are offices in some floors, and classrooms from L1 to L3. The inside balconies of the each floor have tables, each with two chairs, a good setting for 1-1 meeting. 

The views from top floor of the building are not so good though, mostly cramped buildings on campus. I heard incessant bird chirpings from a open "cell" at the top floor, and spotted this tiny bird with red head, yellow throat, grey belly and dark feathers. It stayed on one branch for a few minutes, preening itself and making calls. 

It was a scarlet-backed flowerpecker. A bird I saw for the first time!

Chinese heritage center - the building in the center with a red triangle on its roof

Scarlet-backed flower pecker

Mangosteen

With all the exotic tropical fruits I tried, I like mangosteen the most. 

It has purplish red skin (i.e. rind) and white fruit, and is tasted lightly sweet and sour.

Mangosteen with green stem

mangosteen fruit

How to open it?

The brute force way is to use knife to cut it open at circumference. For properly ripe mangosteen, one can simply squeeze to crack it open.

squeeze to open

How to tell if a Mangosteen is good?

We bought mangosteen regularly from a specific fruit stand, and we had good mangosteen every time. One time we saw large bags of large mangosteens at another fruit stand, which were sold at very good price. We bought two bags. Unfortunately the mangosteens were hard, and I could not squeeze open most of them, the fruits were either rotten, or become translucent.

Based on my experience and online literature, a mangosteen has following characteristics is suspect of being bad:

1) hard skin - over ripe, not good for eating. 

2) brown and floppy stems - over ripe, not good for eating

2) yellow spots on its skin - the fruit is rotten inside already

3) leaking juice is not good.

A good mangosteen is properly ripe when the outer peel is smooth, purplish red in color, and yields slightly with gentle pressure from your thumb.

Mangosteen Facts

Mangosteen is native to southeast Asia.

In Southeast Asia, mangosteen is commonly known as the "Queen of Fruit", and is frequently paired with durian, the "King of Fruit". In Chinese food therapy, mangosteen is considered "cooling", making it a good counterbalance to the "heaty" durian.

Mangosteen in Chinese - shan zhu 山竹.

Mangosteen is nutritious, and slightly sweet and sour, which make it great as a snack or desert. 

Changi Bay Point and Reclaimed Land of Singapore

Changi Bay Point is a pit stop on the Round Island Route for Cycling.

It is kind of remote in Singapore standard because there is no bus stop or MRT (mass rapid transit) station near by. Checking map, I found that the nearest parking lot, Changi Beach Carpark 7, is about 1 mile away (1.6km).

Trail to Bay Point

Yesterday, August 6th, 2022, was a beautiful day, and we went to Changi Bay Point from Changi Beach Carpark 7, which is on a stretch of Changi Beach Park about 3km away from its main section and a nice place by itself.

Changi Beach near Carpark 7

Trail to Changi Bay Point and Beyond

The trail to the bay point is well paved for cycling and hiking, but it has no shade except the initial couple hundreds of meters. It was scorching for the Sunny Saturday we were there. We put Sun sleeves, in addition Lily also had Sun leggings and Sun umbrella to protect us from UV :). 

We enjoyed the white clouds, blue sky and bright colored scenery, as well as the tranquility and peace away from the city, despite the fact that Changi airport is right by its side. 

road to Bay Point

Changi Bay Point

Another view of the Bay Point

That tree at Changi Bay

Many flowers dotted the trail side, and some tall trees on the land side.

flowers along the trail

There was a grey heron flew along the shore, and later a night heron catching fish, there were many birds in the woods by the trail as well. I spotted orange cheeked waxbills, yellow vented bulbuls, and a blue tailed bee eater. I forgot to bring my real camera so the pictures of the birds were not very clear.

Grey Heron

Night Heron

Orange Cheeked Waxbill

Fisherman in kayak

Reclaimed Land of Singapore

By chance, I read about Singapore land reclamation. The Changi area, including the airport is fully reclaimed from sea, wetland. The history of Singapore's land reclamation from sea can found on government's website . 25% of Singapore land was reclaimed. Singapore government planned additional 7-8% land growth by 2030. Reclamation helped economic growth and met the needs of growing population.

The reclamation brought detrimental impact to marine life, and the ecosystem around Singapore. Is it worth the cost?

Singapore Map 1959

Singapore Map 2022

Pink area was reclaimed land, red was area in plan

Note - the map of RIR - Round the Island Route for Cycling