So thankful am I to have had a chance to walk around Fort Canning Park couple of months ago.
Fort Canning, like the UNESCO Heritage award-winning Botanic Gardens, is one of those places that you won't enter simply because you wanted to 'take a shortcut' or because you were 'passing by'.
No, it's a special, planned-out trip that you have to make if you want to visit there, and it doesn't matter whether or not you happen to be in the area (like we were).
You still have to make a deliberate effort to climb up the stairs and walk your way around the park there.
It's been a long, long time since I last came to Fort Canning.
For some reason I've never found the urge nor the need to stroll along her paths, appreciate her forested greenery, or even visit the heritage parts on her slopes that (to the non-botanist me) are even more fascinating than her view, and all her trees.
But these pictures have made me somewhat change my mind.
The Fort- for whatever purpose it was meant to be for- looked differently compared to how I remembered it.
All along I thought that she was nothing more than a left-behind, nearly-forgotten structure of brick with heavy steel doors.
But today, with the moss on the walls, the mildew, and those teeny weeny vines with teeny weeny leaves, she looked timeless, making me wonder if this were how she looked also many years before.
Other than the fact that this Fort was used by the British forces, there's no description what or why (really) this Fort had been built here.
For a very short while I wondered if the gates were meant to prevent intruders, but even so the now-missing wall wasn't built that high, and could the intruders not chug up the hill?
But this evening there was no time to ponder.
I wanted to explore.
So I simply followed the route, beginning first with the path right above the driveway of Hotel Fort Canning that you got to by climbing up a terraced flight of stairs.
Quite charming it was; no doubt I were halfway up a hill in the middle of the busy city center of Singapore, but for a very short while I felt as if I were going through a beautifully laid path through a dense forest of trees.
You know you haven't seen natural foliage in a while when the sight of a bunch of branches, and a pair of old woody trees intrigue you.
This section brought me round a curve, then it was the Fort, and next to it, the building now called the Old Married Soldiers' Quarters.
Somehow their quarters seemed rather.. small.
After that it was more brick paths and more lush green foliage of big ferns, small ferns and bird's nest ferns until the section approaching the reservoir of Fort Canning where (technically) you're not permitted to take a picture but then I liked the architecture of this little tower so from a distance I decided it worthwhile a shot anyway.
The tower reminded me a little of those I'd seen in pictures of Scotland.
I don't know what they're called- garret- something like that- but considering the colonial presence of the British, considering what this hill had been once used for, and the fact that there was a bunker beneath, well, no surprise should it be, indeed.
Honestly, the hilltop reservoirs that exist in this country are of special interest to me.
Maybe because there is very, very little information about them.
There're only two that I know of- one at Pearl's Hill, one here at Fort Canning.
I know of no other.
I'd have loved to take a picture of the wall surrounding the reservoir.
But it's not permitted.
Nevertheless, at this side of the hill, just walk along the path a little more, and you'll find yourself at the side overlooking Central Clarke Quay, Clarke Quay, Havelock Road, and the flats near Chinatown and Chin Swee Road.
It's quite a magnificent view from up here as you gaze down over the road towards the building that marks the end of Clarke Quay and the beginning of Robertson.
All at once, you're looking at a cross section of Singapore's society- the (old) shipping economy, the (old) godowns that have been converted for commercial use, the dining and entertainment outlets, the nightlife outlets, and behind all that, the heartland of Singapore where at coffee shops below the block, residents have their meals, and elderly men guzzle down bottle after bottle of ice-cold beer.
I can't imagine what it must have been like over a century ago when the waters of this river were packed to the brim with sampans and bumboats, when the only structures visible to the eye were the godowns and the shophouses around them.
Some say they were a tad dilapidated.
I'm not sure.
There's very little colored footage from that era, and whatever footage there is somehow makes the place look more worn out and used than what it might have really been.
Around the same area through all the trees, at just another round eastwards, you see the State Court building in all her skyscraper glory, silhouetted behind the branches and leaves of a hillside tree.
By this time I'd been walking quite a bit, and I'd thought I'd already gone a full round of the hill, but no, I was wrong.
Further on, just a little past a family of ferns, little leaves and twirling vines, was (what I think is) the water tower.
I had heard before about a water tower on Fort Canning.
But I hadn't known how close it was to the full-sized replicas of the military cannons, or this modern-looking building on the summit of the hill which I now wonder what its purpose was.
Maybe it had something to do with the reservoir just above and behind.
The replicas fascinated me.
Just like their counterparts at Fort Siloso on Sentosa, they were (I suppose) in placement, looking towards the direction that they once had been intended to be.
Today they look towards Adelphi and High Street Center, but at one time they would have been looking towards what was the Singapore Harbor, Clifford Pier, or the present-day Fullerton Hotel, which, at one time, was also used as a lookout for the British military.
I wish I'd managed to take a picture of the guns.
But then there were others, and I thought it better to pay more attention to the city view behind the water tower.
It was a great view to be had here, by the way.
From where I stood I looked over the tops of trees towards Peninsula Plaza, Excelsior Hotel, the very tall Swissotel, the similarly tall South Beach, and what I tend to call the Raffles City Tower.
However, it wasn't just the city view that I was looking at whilst standing at that spot that day.
There was also the shrine- the Keramat Iskandar Shah- which holds deep religious significance to many religions, and is today open to the public.
Honestly, up till now, I wonder why it is I didn't go down to take a closer look at the shrine that day.
Really, I should have.
Especially since much has been written about it, and the shrine sits there quiet, and timeless, in its place for the unlearned and uninitiated amongst us to venture near, and appreciate both the history and heritage that continues to maketh this island even right now, through the passage of time.