How Does The Eco-bridge Help Animals Cross The BKE in Singapore?

Problem
As you drive along the BKE expressway in Singapore, your bus or car passes under the Ecobridge. What is it and how does it work?

Answers
BKE is an abbreviation for Bukit Timah Expressway. It runs north up to the causeway across the sea linking Singapore to Malaysia. You drive along it to join the PIE, Pan Island Expressway, which runs East West, to and from the airport, Changi Airport, on the East coast.

The Motorways And Bridges
Bukit is Malay for hill, the large hill in the middle of Singapore. The city of Singapore is gradually expanding across the island of Singapore. The Ecobridge was built across the motorway, as a link from one side of the jungle cut by the motorway, to the other side, for the benefit of the animals.

Why? We already have plenty of other bridges over the motorway. How does an Eco-bridge differ from the other bridges, carrying traffic and pedestrians?

The Eco-bridge
The Eco-bridge is exclusively for animals. It is not difficult to see that animals could be frightened away by the noise of traffic and accidentally injured by road traffic.

Pedestrians and Public Access
What about a pedestrian only bridge? Pedestrians could deliberately torment Animals. Others might kidnap animals as pets or to sell.  Well-intentioned families might accidentally injure animals, by trying to lure animals nearer to be photographed, offering unsuitable food.

But there's more to it than that. Just the smell of human crossing the bridge might frighten away some animals. So signs tell the public not to cross.

Plants
A concrete bridge is not attractive to all animals. The Eco-bridge has been planted with appealing plants which providing tempting food, shadows and shelter.

Cameras
Does it work? How do we know? Cameras have been set up to record the animal visitors. A video on YouTube shows you assorted bats and other animals.

Useful Websites
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c18vo5Ybdio (Video of the eco-bridge in Singapore.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjCJvn__N5c (Animation showing worldwide problems and solutions including cows not crossing painted white lines.)

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

The world oddest places to eat and stay: memories of the magic of the cat café, open and closed

Problem
Can't be bothered to go out. Bored? Depressed? Want to entertain children, the elderly, foreign visitors, have a memorable romantic date?

Answer
The internet and TripAdvisor and full or odd restaurants and hotels. I've been to quite a few. Trouble is, many of the best just disappear fast. I have written previous posts on the magi hotel and restaurant. I often look longingly at treetop hotels, and pop-up ice hotels, cafés featuring unusual usable toilets, or toilets as decoration. The more usual and widespread and enduring ones are forest or oriental scenes and guitars (Hard Rock) and waterfalls and aquariums in theme parks and Disney resort hotels and parks.

Story
The Magic Restaurant, San Francisco
Alas closed. Open the wardrobe door and see a cow and start a recorded message telling you to come to dinner.

The Magic Restaurant, London
Alas, closed. Entry door hidden behind a bookcase. Menu appears on white hanky used in a vanishing trick by the person serving you.

The Rainforest Restaurant, Piccadilly
The one in Singapore disappeared under redevelopment of the block near Orchard Road but the one near Piccadilly in London is still there. A real parrot or a parrot video or a parrot mural or fake parrot on a perch always entrances me.

The Cat Cafe in Bristol
The idea behind this is that cat lovers cat curl up surrounded by cats and if they fall in love with one of the cats then adopt a cat needing a home. Unfortunately, I found links to a site saying that the local cat rescue centre did not favour the idea.

Meow Cafe
Denmark Lane,
Bristol
England
UK

http://www.youandmeow.co.uk (Update 2024. It's still there.) 

https://www.theneighborscat.com/you-meow
https://shop.trycelery.com/page/

Tips
Watch out for the opening of The Cat cafe in Bristol. It was supposed to open in January 2017. I discovered it when I clicked on a BBC article on breeding poisonous frogs (why would you?) which was reported in a Bristol newspaper, then spotted the link to an earlier article on the cat café.

I went to the website and there's still no phone number or email for me to check if there's a firm opening date. However, I found some amusing cat themed jewellery and scarves.

Not everybody wants cat theme items just because they like cats. I have a friend who has a cat and she says her friends inundate her with cat theme gifts and she has more than enough. She likes real live cats, not 2D cats. So, maybe check before you buy, subtly if you want your gift to be a surprise. If you are buying for ourself, you don't have that problem.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my profiles and posts.. Many more posts and blogs on this sites and others. Facebook. LinkedIn. Twitter. Please follow, like and share.

How To Make Friends And Chat Whilst Travelling

Wear a badge which says, I want to chat. What a great idea. Not chat on social media, but chat to a real person near you.
What a great idea.

I love chatting to people.

A Singapore Taxi Chat
Sitting in a taxi to the airport, I got chatting to the taxi driver. The first comment I/we made was about noticing a new housing development. That led to discussing cutting down the jungle to make way for more houses.

What did the taxi driver think? More housing was needed, he conceded. Then he added an amusing and insightful comment on changing times. "Old Prime Minister (Lee Kwan Yew) planted trees. His son cut them down."

So true; so funny.

You can follow this train of thought in many directions. That each generation does the opposite of the previous generation. That the reason is that everybody wants to be different. That it's the swing of the pendulum. Sons rebelling against fathers.

Planting
In a country, developing and planting faces the same problems as when you plant a garden, as we did in London, England. First you have not enough greenery, not enough shade, not enough plants, so you plant trees and bushes. For a brief period things are just right.

But a few years later the trees are too tall and the bushes are merging and the grass is growing knee-highs if you don't spend every week cutting it down. Soon you are constantly pruning the trees and cutting down the bushes. Finally, you have to cut down the trees you planted.

I could write a poem or a PhD thesis or a book about this, just inspired by one sentence from a Singapore taxi driver. What pleasure from talking to stranger. I am an extravert and love talking to strangers. Maybe I should get a badge. If you get one, maybe one day I shall talk to you.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/i-talk-to-strangers-the-badge-campaign-encouraging-humans-to-actually-engage-with-one-another-a7319996.html

What's New in Piccadilly: 'Believe It Or Not' Also 'Rainforest Restaurant' In London, by Piccadilly

Piccadilly
I first visited Ripley's believe it or not on a circular tour of the USA on a Greyhound bus in the Swinging Sixties when I stopped at San Francisco. Ripley was a souvenir collector who liked to save anything a little bit different.

Years later I can still remember the ghoulish shrunken skull and a bible the size of a pin. I am not even sure these are what I saw. I have a mental filing cabinet in which I add into empty drawers everything I see which either is or could be at Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

I must admit I have a penchant for the weird. I was thinking of adding to my blog a streamline, such as Angelic and Devilish sites and scenes. Or Angela's weird and wonderful travels.

Now, tourism is reversed. Americans and other tourists can come to London and see Ripley's Believe Or Not here. Everybody goes to Piccadilly and that's where you need sunglasses to see the sunny weather which may surprise you for five minutes in winter, all day in summer. On dull day's and nights Piccadilly is lit up at night like Times Square and you won't need sunglasses except to look at neon lights. I wear light sensitive trifocals. But if you are lucky enough to need glasses these would be just the thing. They symbolise you won't believe your eyes at Ripley's Believe It Or Not, London.

Believe it or not, these purple sunglasses, a souvenir from Ripley's Believe It or Not, don't do anything magic like the smart glasses, but they are actually practical, and have UV 400 protection CE marked on the front. If you are near Piccadilly in London, stop at Ripley's. At the very least make time to read their promotional pictures.

Would you rather see and read about fake skulls than real ones? Right opposite on the other side of Piccadilly is another surprise. Family fun and food. Rainforest Cafe. .Jungle theme, with birds and bits and bobs at every turn.

Peter Pan meets Toddler Tarzan meets Beatrix Potter meets Ripley's. It's what Hamlets toyshop should have for a kiddie cafe. Oddly enough, children seem more interested in the food. It's Mums like me more used to McDonalds which ceases to surprise who love Rainforest Cafe. Something to keep adults amused. Like a junior version of Trader Vics. More fun than Treasure Island hotel in Las Vegas.

I first saw a Rainforest Cafe in Singapore and loved it so much I liked to walk past even when I had no time to go in. So I was devastated one day when redevelopment closed off the building and turned the area into a building site.

Now for the good news: It's in London. A themed restaurant full of animated parrots and amusing jungle scenes. Now in London, central point, central park for themed cafes.
www.therainforestcafe.co.uk
facebook rainforestcafelondon for a cafe

You can't remember everything, so if you haven't been to either or both of these for a while, it's time to go back. There's either something new to see or it will enchant you yet again.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker.