I was so taken aback, I tell you, the first time I boarded Bus 42 from Lengkong Tiga and the bus made a right up the steep road of Lengkong Empat all the way to the top when this park that on Google Maps is known as Interim Park at Lengkong Enam popped into view.
For a few weeks already I had been looking at the view out from Steppy's balcony a few degrees north of East, and hadn't known.
Now, why it's called an Interim Park, I don't know.
Especially since most Interim Parks that I've seen tend to be very small, but this one looks like the space has been there for a very long time.
It's not just the grass or the hill or the big pavilions or even the well laid path that runs around the entire park.
It's the trees.
These trees make me think of jungle countryside, like those that you see on the extreme ends of East Coast Park, like those that you see lining the PIE as you travel northwards towards Woodlands and Bukit Batok.
It's the kind of trees that you see when you're somewhere in, say, Bukit Timah, or Holland Avenue, or even Ghim Moh (near the railway), a bit similar to those forested areas that existed all over the island years and years ago and which have mostly given way to urban development.
I've known of forests in the Central Catchment Area all the way up Yishun and Sembawang and even Seletar, Punggol and Pasir Ris.
I hadn't known that there might be some here at Kembangan.
Not just that, I kept getting reminiscence of this area behind Jln Tua Kong somewhere near Bukit Timah where, close to the college I attended, there was also a park that we students- having no running track or stadium- would jog by as we did our practice 2.4.
What speaks to me most about this park is certainly the trees.
I had not expected to see trees this huge, with such shady canopies, this side of Kembangan.
It's not obvious when you're wandering through the space of Lorong Melayu or Lorong Marican.
Neither is it obvious when cutting through the blocks of Lengkong Tiga or when you're walking along Jln Kembangan or even when you're chugging up the hill at Lengkong Empat.
Only when you reach the summit of the road that this park in her full glory stretches out in front of you.
Maybe you'd know it if you were coming from Lengkong Enam or Jln Selamat, but so far I haven't had much of a chance to come from the other side, and so, yes, even till now, I can't get over the surprise.
I'm delighted, however.
Because, really, it's not just the presence of the Park that surprises me but the fact that it's so close to where I am, and that every morning and evening, in the distance out the view from Steppy's balcony, beyond the flats, the pretty houses, and even the cute little round-shaped canopies of trees, I'm getting Nature's energies from this.