On a Sunday afternoon in October, I had an appointment in Newton, therefore I decided to plan to check out the two playgrounds in Toa Payoh, that was not too far away from Newton. For the Old Dragon Playground, it was more of a revisit and to take a look at how she looks without the old HDB blocks behind her because they were demolished in an en-bloc move. The Old Dragon Playground still looked just as good and grand, without the HDB blocks behind, it kind of makes it empty yet open and wide.

During my short visit, I saw children playing there, running around the Old Dragon Playground and playing with the sand. Although I had my tech gadgets nowadays, I do miss the fun and laughter of my childhood days at the playgrounds in my neighbourhood, where there wasn’t much technology advancements and gadgets in those era.

After taking some photographs of the Old Dragon Playground, soaking in the thoughts, feelings and emotions, I walked across the road from the Old Dragon Playground to Kim Keat Avenue. Soon I found my Dinosaur Playground! I found my big T-Rex Dinosaur there and it kind of looks cute! While it wasn’t exactly the old playground that I grew up playing at, I was having deep thoughts (like a primary school kid during my time) on how I would go around playing at the Dinosaur Playground.

When I finished photographing and documenting the Dinosaur Playground, I turned and walk away. I still have a few more Old Playgrounds to cover and complete my personal project that took me over a few years. While it had been slow and at times inconsistent on my part, I had no regrets and instead had a lot of personal fulfilment, enjoyment and nostalgia.

Time to head for the next Old Playground and tick it off my remaining list.

The post Exploring Dinosaur Playground and Old Dragon Playground appeared first on TGH Photography and Travel Portal/Blog.

The Old Playground that I am featuring is the Baby Dragon Playground in the heart of (Braddell area) Toa Payoh HDB Estate. The Old Playgrounds were designed by Mr Khor Ean Ghee, who was working in the Housing and Development Board (HDB)  in the 1970s and 1980s. The Baby Dragon Playground was a smaller version of her bigger cousin, the Dragon Playground. The Dragon Playground was Mr Khor’s favourite playground among his many playground designs that he completed for HDB and it lived up to the mandate of creating spaces for the children to play safely and learn about local identity.

When I found the Baby Dragon Playground, things had changed, the sand pit were no longer around. The flooring had changed and there were a new modern playground beside it too. As I climbed up the steps and ran down the curved slide, nostalgic childhood memories came running back into me. Even though it will never be the same like before, I am happy that the Baby Dragon Playground is still around and hopefully still be around into the decades ahead into the future. Whenever we stood at the top of the Old Playgrounds, we had a top of the world feeling (when we were small kids and it looked kind of high up there!), fast forward ahead as an adult, the feelings never change, the top of the world feeling is still around (except that it’s not that high since we are now adults!).

Coming back down, taking photographs, documenting and now sharing the Baby Dragon Playground here, my thoughts, my stories, my fun times. I hope to add more photographs of the Baby Dragon Playground from different perspectives and views, to continue sharing what the Old Playgrounds meant to some of us. This is my own personal project to document Old Playgrounds in Singapore, my collection on Flickr! Every post I write for each individual Old Playground, I am taking a small baby (hence the Baby Dragon Playground) step to producing my own and very first photobook on each individual Old Playground story, photographs and adventure. It’s a dream that I want to fulfil eventually some time down the road. Will you join me in going back to your childhood days and play again at the Old Playgrounds?

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Useful information and links on Old Playgrounds in Singapore

– Singapore Memory Project ~ Mosaic Memories – Remembering the Playgrounds Singapore Grew Up In

– Map of the Old Playgrounds locations in Singapore by Justin Zhuang

View Old Singapore Playgrounds in a larger map

The post Old Playgrounds: Baby Dragon Playground appeared first on TGH Photography and Travel Portal/Blog.