Gardens by the Bay

When I moved to Singapore as a college student nine years ago, the most attractive features of the city I noticed were it’s lush greenery and cleanliness! Despite being a small island nation (roughly the size of San Francisco city and less than half the size of New Delhi - my hometown) its almost 50% covered in greenery earning it the epithet ‘Garden City’. Yet it’s also highly urbanized and one of the world’s richest nations.

In an effort to further improve the quality of life by offering extensive landscaping and biodiversity, the much anticipated Gardens by the Bay opened their doors to the public over the last year.  The horticulture themed park is an integral part of Singapore’s long-term vision to become a ‘city in a garden’ and offers over 80 hectares of  urban greenery and leisure space in the reclaimed downtown marina area.

Similar to features found at the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco or Central Park in New York, the garden consists of themed parks, an event space, a lake, a playground and tree lined walkways. In addition there are:

• Conservatories of Tropical and Mediterranean flora
• A 115 feet high man-made waterfall
• 18 ‘Supertrees’ a.k.a. vertical gardens which come alive with lights and offer audio visual entertainment in the evenings

In keeping with Singapore’s tradition of creating unusual dining options, a bistro sits atop the tallest Supertree at 164 feet from the ground offering multiple cuisines!

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The end result looks quite amazing – I especially love the night shots! Not to mention it’s commendable that a city with limited real estate like Singapore is making such great strides to enrich people’s lives by creating a large scale tropical garden in the heart of the city.

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Golden Gate Park

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That said, I also wish the garden looked less like an artificial leisure themed attraction. The project has all the ingredients for a public garden but it lacks the natural quality I’ve experienced at the Central Park and Golden Gate Park.

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Central Park

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The essence of connecting with nature is to be able to experience it in all it’s glory minus the perfectly pruned plants and a roof top bar atop super trees. However, there’s also no doubt in my mind that connection to greenery greatly enhances the quality of our lives physically and psychologically. Kudos to Singapore for setting a trend for other Asian cities to follow!

Check out this article over at The Long Winding Road for the author’s first hand experience of the gardens during opening week!