Day 29: Marina Barrage

I'm a few days late in posting this, but I was occupied with other things. I visited Marina Barrage at Marina Bay with my student buddy and some friends for a picnic. Marina Barrage manages the Marina Reservoir, which gathers water from the Marina catchment (man, I'm using the word Marina a lot, aren't I?). We actually talked about it briefly in my Water Resources Engineering class. But anyways, Marina Barrage isn't just to provide drinking water and flood control -- it's also a recreational site. The main building has a giant green roof that doubles as a park, and many people come here to relax. The large, open area combined with steady winds make it a perfect place for kite flying.

The skies were grave when I arrived in Marina Bay, and my prediction of rain was right on the mark. Well, it was actually only a bit of drizzle, but it was enough to make us have our picnic under the roof. We had all sorts of goodies, like egg mayo sandwiches (similar to egg salad), fried fishballs, chicken nuggets, potato chips, Jell-O jigglers, and iced tea. There was more than that, but I don't remember what everything was called. The rain did let up after a while, so I trekked around and gathered footage. The views of the bay were great, and the Singapore Flyer and other landmarks were in full view.

I spent a fair amount of time just relaxing on the green roof and watching the kites fly. There were all sorts of different kites, from traditional shapes to Angry Birds to the Minions from Despicable me to butterflies. Come to think of it, the Minions are really popular over here. I keep seeing Minion merchandise and stuff all over the place, and my student buddy said the lines at McDonalds were out the door when they featured Despicable Me toys.

Back to kites, some of them were really large and fancy. Some of them were so big that that they made a sound similar to a motor as they whipped through the sky. You can hear it pretty clearly in the footage I took. I also spotted a bunch of kites that were caught in trees. Gotta be careful while flying!

My phone also rang while I was filming, and I had a complete brain fart because I thought the ringtone was coming from the camera. I felt like a huge idiot afterwards.