A Private Area, Two Parks and Haw Par Villa

Today, we rode in the west...

The crew gathered at the open area in front of Vivo City today before heading towards West Coast Highway, making a left detour midway towards Keppel Bay.

It didn't take long before we were informed by the resident watchmen that we were treading on private area, even though there was no barrier/check point of any sorts between the path and the main road.

Keppel Bay, not the most visitor friendly place on earth, but offers quite stunning scenery.

Here in this private area, you'll find many yachts which is quite a rare sight in Singapore...

A few weeks ago, we rode past some traditional and rustic shophouses along Joo Chiat. Today, we witnessed some quite stunning futuristic architecture within this private area...

Here is KC doing his best impression of mowing the lawn of the private area...

As we couldn't stay too long on the private area, we promptly made ourselves scarce. We then proceeded towards Labrador Park, one of our country's oldest parks.

Here is a machine gun post built during the World World II in an effort to defend Singapore against the opposing Japanese forces. It also proved to be one of the biggest mistakes and became an apt case study. The post was deployed facing south towards the sea. The Japanese invaded from the north.

And speaking of irony, we saw this guy rock climbing in front of a danger sign warning of falling rocks...

Our regular hunt for good food found ourselves at Telok Blangah market this week...

A solid bowl of good Lor Mee. Certainly worth a try if you're in the area...

We ride, we eat and we ride again! Burning those Lor Mee calories away, we rode past Henderson and Depot road towards Hort Park along Alexandra road.

Here we met our first friend for the day along Hyperadad Road.

Riders cranking up slope!

And when you thought it was over, here comes friend number 2! and one heck of a steep slope I must add!

The fruit of our peddling labour was a nice and relaxing ride along the quiet streets of Canterbury road where colonial black and white houses stood in their finest glory.

Here you'll find Singapore's only remaining tennis clay courts. Rafa Nadal will be pleased.

The original plan was to explore along the Southern ridges but because of the recent heavy rain resulting in a minor landslide, plus the emergence of an aggressive alpha monkey in the vicinity, the bridge was closed. Hence, we reverted to plan B, Haw Par Villa.

It has been ages since we last visited Haw Par Villa. The last time we were here, there were entrance fees and a theme park. Now, admission is free and the theme park is a thing of the past.

A steady stream of visitors could be seen flowing into this historic premise, now made even more accessible via the newly opened Haw Par Villa circle line station.

We weren't allowed to cycle within the villa, but allowed to push our bikes around.

The Ten gates of Hell...it certainly would be some venue for a spooktacular Halloween event...

The Chinese culture omnipresent throughout the villa...Chinese proverbs can be seen everywhere...

The founders of this stunning iconic Haw Par Villa, Mr Aw Boon Har and Aw Boon Par. We haven't been riding much in the West and this was quite an enjoyable ride. The scenery along Keppel Bay was picturesque. Labrador Park was nice and complete with its history fix. Hort Park was peaceful and beautiful. Haw Par Villa, as always was quite something.

It was the perfect weekend ride before a brand new work week.