Ohh…it’s already the last day of the month. The Easter long weekend is ending in a few hours too. I spent my afternoon today at the Fort Canning Park. I have been to this park before few years ago but that particular visit was quite a brief one and didn’t cover many parts of the park.
Today I decided to explore every corner of this huge 18-hectare hill park. It was also not too sunny (cloudy with occasional rain in between) during my visit to the park early today. Once arrived at the park, I climbed a lot of steps to reach to the top of the 48-metres high hill where Raffles Garden, Raffles House and Fort Canning Lighthouse are located. Raffles House was once a place of residence for Sir Stamford Raffles, the British colonial official who was largely credited for the founding of contemporary Singapore.
I then walked the entire loop of the park that surrounds the Fort Canning Reservoir. I first passed through the Sang Nila Utama Garden (a historical garden with a series of Javanese split gates and ornamental pool) and then the Shrine of Sultan Iskandar Shah (or famously known as Parameswara, the last Sultan of this island kingdom). There are actually a lot of historical sites within this park.
I then went to visit the Fort Canning Heritage Gallery located inside the Fort Canning Centre building at the park right in front of the Fort Canning Green. The gallery spans two levels and traces the rich history of the hill and showcases the rare artefacts found there. After that, I checked out the adjacent 9-Pound Cannon, Artisan’s Garden (archeological excavation site with discovered artefacts that show possibility of a palace of a Malay kingdom on Fort Canning Hill), Spice Garden (replica of first experimental botanical garden by Stamford Raffles) and Farquhar Garden (previously owned by William Farquhar, the first ruler of British colony of Singapore).
After passing through the ASEAN Sculpture Garden, I made my way to the famous Tree Tunnel at the park. This is the most popular spot of the entire park due to a spot along the spiral staircase with a circular void above for fantastic pictures. There were so many people queueing for the photo spot eventhough it is already drizzling.
I then went to see the Fort Gate and visited the Battlebox, a historic World War II bunker constructed under the hill as an emergency, bomb-proof command centre during the Malayan Campaign and the Battle of Singapore. It is now a museum depicting the final days of the Battle of Singapore (when British lost the island to Japan invasion). Walking inside the underground labyrinth structure here makes me felt like I was in a movie set for a horror movie. Pretty cool experience visiting this museum though.
After that, I walked past the Jubilee Park and saw the Forbidden Spring (or known as ‘Pancur Larangan’, where the wife and consorts of the Malay kings used to bathe). I then reached the end of the loop after passing through the Five Kings’ Walk (a short walking trail with storyboards about Singapore’s five kings in the 14th century). There’s some good views over the city from this pathway leading back to the Raffles Garden.
I then made my way back home after spending 3 hours at the park. If you are going in a slow and a more relaxed pace (and if you are a history buff), you could easily spend more than half a day over there at this huge park located right in the middle of the city and has a lot to offer to visitors. There’s just so much things to see over there.
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