SINGAPORE BOTANIC GARDENS

I love walking along this stretch of the timber walkway at the Visitor's Centre of the Singapore Botanic Gardens because of the numerous pleasant foliage plants.

CATERPILLARS OF SINGAPORE'S BUTTERFLIES

Today's weather - sunny

I bought this book, priced at $26, last Friday even though I have been eyeing to buy it for a while now since I read about the recent launch. It was with much trepidation and excitement when I held onto this wonderful book co-authored by Horace Tan and Khew Sin Khoon.


It is a book that was so long in the making since taking photos of different instars of the caterpillars and pupae, of the butterflies, would probably have taken so much time and effort. I paused with abated breath and with butterflies in my stomach before flipping open the first page. 


I think Khew and Horace should go on to produce books on butterflies around this region. It is such a wonderful read and I am glad to have been acquainted with the most knowledgeable Khew years ago.

COSTUS & ARISTOLOCHIA

Today's weather - sunny

This unusual Costus with green leaves produces beautiful red bracts with yellow flowers.


On the other hand, the uncommon Aristolochua, which I posted before, with variegated leaves produces inconspicuous small flowers that look like the claws of a crab.

PROMETHEUS

So is "Prometheus" the prequel to the 1979 movie "Alien" by the same Director Ridley Scott? I think so.

Starring Noomi Rapace, the original actress in the movie "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo",  Michael Fassbender of "X-Men First Class" fame, Guy Pearce, Logan Marshall-Green and Charlize Theron, who was most recently seen in "Snow White and the Huntsman", it was a controversial movie that explored the origin of man and appeared to bridge the missing links to the alien movie. I feel a movie is just a movie and should not be taken too seriously since it is usually made more for entertainment than anything else.


At the start, it probably showed how mankind was created from the DNA of a humanoid alien. Fast forward to a futuristic 2089 when archaeological digs at various continents unearthed similar star maps pointing to a series of planets. Four years later in 2093, a team of 17 members on board a spaceship were gathered together to explore a distant planet which points to the origin of everything. The expedition was fraught with lots of unknown e.g. row of gigantic structures in a clearing, cylinders with a black oozing substance, decapitated alien corpse, as two crew members succumbed to violent deaths inflicted on them by the alien beings. They referred to the aliens as engineers because of their supposed creation of mankind.


The movie was kind of slow at first as the team was formed and picked up pace about one hour into it. Noomi was the lead protagonist Dr Elizabeth Shaw and her foetal abortion by caesarian was actually quite gross. Michael as the android was cold, calculated and brilliantly mechanical in his movements. I was disappointed with the role that Charlize played because it was sadly insignificant. She is so talented and her acting ability was all wasted here.


Subsequently, a surviving alien was revived by the team and it turned on them, killing most of the members. The remaining survivors discovered that the aliens were bent on destroying their creation and despatched their spaceship to go to Earth to decimate the human race. To prevent the impending war, some of them sacrificed their lives to prevent the alien spaceship from taking off into the sky. 


Of course in the end, the brutal engineer was killed but In the process, a new alien form, similar to the one in the "alien" movies was created. The only survivor, on board the Prometheus, Dr Elizabeth Shaw recorded a message log as she escaped from the planet in one of the alien's spaceship. In fact, this message sounded familiar as if I have heard it before in one of the alien movies. That is probably the connection between this latest movie and the earlier ones.                                                                                                                        

DREAM

Today's weather - sunny


I had a weird dream yesterday morning and I guessed it must be due to work related stress. A lot of the contents did not make much sense, so I really do not know how to interpret it.


In the dream, I remembered that I won an award for something and had to go on stage to receive the award from a Minister or some high level officer, which I shall refer to as the award presenter. The presenter was standing at the far end of the stage and I had to walk towards him from the other side. As I started walking towards him, I suddenly felt something strange and had great difficulty walking properly. I did not dare to look down because there were many people in the audience and after a while, I realized that the legs of my jeans were somehow tangled together. As a result, it took me a long time to make that short walk towards the presenter.


As I struggled towards the presenter, he grew impatient and just when I was a few feet away from him, there was an announcement for some other award presentation. It became very awkward for me because there I was on the stage but instead of receiving the award and going down the steps, I had to move behind the presenter and stand there. After a brief moment, I spoke to the person who passed the awards to the presenter to try and diffuse the awkwardness.


That was when I woke up suddenly. I wonder what all these mean? Am I overworked?

VIEW

Today's weather - sunny

When we see a physical object, it is sometimes important to view it beyond the surface and look at a different angle, platform and so on to get a different perspective and scale of things e.g. through the glass, bird's eye view. 


It is the same with problems and all other things in our lives. Some things may not be what they appear to be. When we start to be receptive to different ways of looking at everything, we may get to appreciate the big picture.

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN

Today's weather - sunny

This movie was made for a mature audience compared to the recent one "Mirror Mirror" starring Julia Roberts and gave a different take on the same fairy tale. It was darker and more entertaining, by my standards.


This newer version stars Charlize Theron as Queen Ravenna, Kristen Stewart as Snow White, Chris Hemsworth as Eric the widowed Huntsman and Sam Claflin as Prince William. The movie drew flak in the US for getting normal height actors to portray the seven dwarfs and used CGI effects to superimpose their heads onto real life dwarf actors.


I know I am biased but I absolutely adore Charlize in her role as the cold, icy and evil queen who was driven to desperation by the circumstances surrounding her life. She was as excellent and splendid as I expected her to be and her name Ravenna was supposedly chosen to draw a parallel between her and the crows that gave her form. On the other hand, I felt Kristen was miscast as the pure, innocent and yet strong-minded Snow White. She definitely looked older than her character and at times, I thought she channeled Bella from the "Twilight" movie series with the same limited sad and longing expression. I think some other actress would have been more suitable than her to play Snow White. There was no breakthrough for Chris though and he was in his usual form. At certain angles, his entire face and facial hair reminded me of a half-man and half-ape. I would definitely suggest that he plays the role of an ape or ape-man in movies such as "Planet of the Apes". Sam played second fiddle as the Prince who surprisingly, wasn't the one who revived Snow White from death. In fact, unbeknownst to all, Eric was the one who broke the spell when he kissed Snow White on her death bed. From the Huntsman who was sent to hunt her down and kill her, he ended up protecting her until the very end.


The mystical dark forest and the sanctuary, where fairies live, were interesting and provided a stark contrast between the two. The latter was beautiful and was every bit like an enchanted forest with magical creatures and plants. Like the characters Snow White, Eric and the seven dwarfs, I was completely immersed in the fairy land until the magical white stag was suddenly shot by an arrow from the pursuing army and burst the bubble.


Finally, the ending showed Snow White being crowned as the Queen and with her were all her loyal subjects including Prince William, but she appeared distracted and looked around until her gaze fell on Eric. Only then did she finally relax and manage a smile. From this, it was evident that even Snow White could not resist Thor, I mean the widowed Huntsman. It is poignant because despite her power, she would not be able to get together with Eric given their different social status. The movie ended on that note, presumably to give viewers the room to decide for themselves how they want it to end. 

CALANTHE & GLORIOSA

These are more recent photos of the Calanthe orchid and Gloriosa (common name: Flame Lily) fruit.


When is the former going to flower? And should I pick the mini-cucumber looking fruit of the Gloriosa before it splits? Growing the Flame Lily is a first for me, so I am still learning about it. It has been in this state for a while already.

BLACK VEINED TIGER & STACHYTARPHETA

It is very rewarding to see efforts of my planting coming to fruition when I frequently see lots of butterflies such as the Black Veined Tiger, visiting the plants e.g. Crotalaria retusa, that I planted. 

The blue-flowered Stachytarpheta indica is apparently a voracious weed too. I saw lots of them growing in areas where they weren't planted but I am keeping them. Anyway, the ones in this car park were planted and are here for keeps.