Over the Chinese New Year, we brought the girls to River Ang Pow to soak ourselves in the happy and joyous New Year mood! Thankfully, the venue this year is huge, on the Marina floating platform, and we didn’t go during the first two days of the new year, so it was not that crowded. I really like the cheena atmosphere in the air! =D And of course, going to the River Ang Pow with my family is just awesome.

We walked to the River Ang Pow from Esplanade, and I was mesmerized by the night scene of Singapore. Simply beautiful.

The brightly-lit gate!

This is the entrance to the floating platform. My first time stepping onto the floating platform, and it was a surreal feeling! Haha!

It’s the Year of the Dragon, so everywhere you’d see structures of dragons made of different materials. Pretty interesting!

This one is made up entirely of china plates, bowls and cups!

You will also get to see different kinds of Chinese cultural arts and crafts. Different experts in embroidery, sewing, dying etc were invited to do live demonstrations on site. Quite a good chance to learn more about ancient and modern Chinese arts and culture.

The HUGE centrepiece of the whole fair!

And of course, every year they would have the different Chinese horoscopes on display for photo taking! (As you can see, Joey was very upset we made her take photo with her horoscope. =P)

Muahahahahha LOVE Joey’s ‘buay-song’ look. =P

We continued walking through the Helix Bridge to MBS.. This is how River Ang Pow looked like from Helix Bridge. =)

I’ve always thought that the Helix Bridge looked very pretty, especially at night!

Ended our night with some happy poses at MBS!

To read Part A, please click here!

Our boat ride took us to Pulau Kukup, which is a protected mangrove area surrounded by lots of greeneries. Never thought I would go on a nature trek with my parents and kids, so it was really quite a fun experience. =D

It’s a wonderful and quiet little place. I always loved to bring my girls for nature walks!

You have to buy tickets for entry into the mangrove area. Adults= RM10, Children = RM3, Senior Citizens= RM5.

I looked out to the other side from the pier, and thought it looked very serene and tranquil. =)

The bridge walkway that would take us into Nature! It was high-tide time!

The first structure you would meet is this red tower, which will bring you to the hanging bridge.

I didn’t realise how scary it was to walk across on the bridge until I was on it. It was swinging from side to side as I walked! =X

Kudos to my mum who walked across carrying Baby Jayne! Clap Clap Clap. I was holding so tightly to both sides’ ropes and just prayed I would reach the other side safely.

But of course, it was all very safe and steady. I was just being scaredy cat, I suppose. =P

The most fun part about taking a nature trek would be to look out for interesting creatures around us. And of course, seeing all the beautiful greens around me invigorates me! =)

From time to time, my girls would go, ‘Hey mummy LOOK!!! Another crab!’ for the 10980948347th time. Love it. =)

One feature about Pulau Kukup was that you would see interesting quotes, mostly related to nature, everywhere. Some are really meaningful and interesting. =)

Look how high the roots went just to breathe! =) At the end of our trip, our kids learnt that in mangroves, the roots of the trees have to rise above the water level in order to breathe and get sunlight. It’s a main characteristics of a mangrove swamp. Not too bad, I say!

My brother picked up this shell creature. The red part was squirming and moving as I took a shot of it. =X Gives me goosebumps.

To my dad & mum, this kind of swamp is not foreign to them. They grew up in villages and would have spent much time playing in such areas during their childhood days. Here and there, my mum would point out weird looking creatures or snails on the trees or in the swamps, and tell me she’s eaten them before, and that they were very delicious when fried with sambal. =X

Baby Jayne attempted to ‘hit’ some of the creatures by blowing bubbles at them. Very cute. =)

And when she’s tired, a ride on Grandpa’s shoulders was always a treat.

Nobody was manning this mini ‘pier’ or boat ride service… In fact, there was virtually no one in this area when we reached.. We were nearing the end of the trail and had to turn back to get back to the pier.

We spotted monkeys (whole family with papa, mama and babies!!)…

… and our absolute delight of the trip: WILD BOAR! My first time seeing a wild boar not from the TV! It was a cool dude and couldn’t be bothered to even look at us, fully focusing on digging dirt.

The four-storey high birds observatory tower marked the end of the trail. What a nice and lovely walk in nature during CNY! =)