June 2, 2008

inSingapore: The just-opened Jurong Central Park

Posted in Travel and Culture tagged inSingapore, Jurong, Jurong Central Park, Jurong Singapore, parks, places, Singapore at 11:04 am by myrlinn

We took a walk to the new Jurong Central Park the other day. Great location for a park, just next to Boon Lay MRT station and bus interchange, and Jurong Point shopping centre.

The visit didn’t have a promising start, though. I was like: this is IT???

There was a sparse feel to the place. Trees have been planted, but they look like they will need a few years to mature before the park starts to have that green lung feel.

And, on the practical side, I think the benches suck. They don’t have backs, not comfy at all for older folks who may just want to go relax there in the evenings.

Exploring on, though, I did find a few positive points:

• “Wetlands” area. Love it. It’s quite unusual, with reeds waving in the water. And I like it that I could hear frogs there.

• Children’s playground. Another well-landscaped area, and there are some fun activity areas for children. If I have any criticism, it would be that I feel that the playground should be spread over a wider area. There weren’t that many families there the day I went (it was rather late in the evening, I guess) but already it felt slightly crowded to me.

View of the edge of the children’s playground. You can seek pockets of foreign workers relaxing in the park, Picture taken on a Saturday evening.

• Canal (I was going to say “drain”, but that makes it sound rather unexciting) running along the edge of one side of the park. I like it that they’ve installed lights all along the way. For someone like me, who loves walking beside the water, that’s a very calming place. It also added to the atmostphere that we saw someone fishing there.

• Clock tower. I find it rather quaint that they thought to put a a clock tower, albeit a modern version, in the park. I tend to think of clock towers as an oldy-worldy thing, dating back to the days when towns have one central clock tower for the convenience of residents. Not the prettiest thing in the world, but certainly something you can’t help but notice — makes a good landmark, at least.

View of the park from Boon Lay MRT platform (taken before the opening of the park). There’s a partial view of the Clock Tower ie that red and black tall structure on the left.

More info here: Jurong Central Park (by National Parks, Singapore)

——————-

UPDATE:

I have posted more pictures in a new blog post:
inSingapore: Wetland section of Jurong Central Park

Permalink