Looking out....

.... it is a bigger world out there. Perhaps its time to leave the comfort zone .....

Garden-By-The-Bay

My cameras ran out of batteries as I left the orchid show, leaving me with just my handphone to make a snapshot inside one of the 2 chilled Flower Domes at the Garden-By-The-Bay project. It turned out quite decent, showing the giant ferris wheel and skyscrapers at the backdrop.
Out at the garden, I rubbed my eyes and looked twice to confirm that one of the super trees was indeed laden with Tillandsia xerographical. I do hope this form is more tolerant of the monsoon here ....
This is the zoom-out view of the project, evidently still a work-in-progress but there's enough stuff to visualise the fab-out product.

A walk through WOC 2011

With dark clouds looming overhead, the iconic venue for the World Orchid Conference looked rather menacing as we made quick strides towards it. Not a moment too soon, rain started pelting us as we reached the lobby ....

a few days ago, the hallway to the entrance was deserted ….
today, not so ....

We were first greeted by the award winning display from Papua New Guinea ..... the Sepik mask had a crocodile tongue, beside it was another mask with a flying fox looking like a vodoo doll .... ahem excuse me is any for sale ?
Another one from PNG, with a birds-of paradies and another intricate mask with bird motiff....
.... crowds jostled to take photos, inevitably leading to some not-so-nice exchanges beside me .... time to move on.....

Indonesia's display, modelled after a Tana Toraja cliff burial site ....
...this one from Australian Orchid Council ....
Sabah's display - a ferret-badger with Liparis, Malaxis and other ground orchids. I actually liked this quite a bit as it showcased many obscure local species.
Paphs are omni-present in shows like this, this is the ever popular P. spicerianum that sadly will not do well in lowland tropics .....
and here's hybrid from the Dark Side .....
at the floral window section, this one caught my eye with backdrop of variegated leaves (Pandanus ?) and its apparent new hybrid fern .....
alas....they were stapled together.
.... another floral window.
Yes its an orchid show but it did not stop Borneo Exotics from putting a fine display of Nepenthes that almost stole the limelight. Some would say they did ....
I would have dwelled a little more at the displays but crowds were gathering. The frequency of unwelcomed human torsos inserting between the lens and the exhibits rose with every release of the shuttle.

Eventually I retreated to the vendor section for some retail therapy ....

World Orchid Conference 2011 - Singapore

After more than 4 decades, the World Orchid Conference is back in Singapore once more. The round-robin show had been held every 3 years since 1954 and the last time Singapore hosted this event was in October 1963. What's more, this time we get a sneak preview of the Garden-by-the-bay, a project which will costs a few hundred million S$ upon completion. As usual, Government booths will be set up to hand out export certificates on-the-spot if you so wish to bring plants out of the island.

So despite the fact that the venue is connected to the glitzy gambling den, I went ahead and ordered tickets for it.

And if you had yet to plan your vacations, do come - but visit the show first before hopping to the casino , I bet you will find it more enjoyable that way ....

When : 13 – 20 November 2011
Where: Sands Expo and Convention Centre

20th WOC

Sierra Nevada detour

A detour from my usual babble on the SE Asian scene, we took this roadtrip after finishing business in the US West Coast.

Burning the wheels down the uneventful highway out of Vegas in the early morning, the landscape became decidedly more interesting once I swirled west into a country road which twirled between and around arid hills dotted with Yuccas and brown scrubs.

I only managed to find the turn-off to White Mountains after a couple of attempts (cursed GPS). My reason for being here was to see this old timer – the eastern bristle cone pine Pinus longaeva – the oldest living organism in the world. A specimen here was said to be more than 4800 years old but we would not be told where it grew.

To be frank there were more than 1 species of pine tree here, and they all looked similar to me. However, as one climbed towards the treeline, the concentration of the real McCoy became much denser.
Supposedly, there were slivers of living tissue sandwiched between those gnarled lifeless trunks, but then again, some may have been killed by lightning – hard to tell really, especially when they have so little leaves.
We pushed north under a wide sky glowing crimson to spend the night at Lee Vining.
Before the first ray of sun, we bolted out of the door to soak in the lunar ambience of Mono Lake and its ancient tufa towers. These calcium deposit were only visible after the lake was partially drained to irrigate orchards and now the local conservationists had stepped in to stop the waterline from dropping further.
I kept my fingers crossed at Lee Vining – sometimes Tioga Pass, our planned entry route to Yosemite, would be closed due to snow in October. This time luck was on our side. This was the view of the mountain range we would be traversing …..
Patchy fall colours were were starting to show as we entered Tioga pass, which ascended up to 3000m at the western Sierra Nevada before dipping towards the valley.....
....leading us right into the glacial-carved panoramas of Yosemite National Park.

At Olmstead Point, I took a vested interest in a strangely shaped pine, and hoped it would be a hundred times smaller so it could fit into my bonsai pot …..

Signing off .....