Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Expedition 5 - Abandoned Swimming Pool in Town

This expedition takes us to Fort Canning Park, a scenic, historic park located right within the heart of Orchard. Just beside the Registry of Marriage (ROM), Fort Canning Park in day time offers a beautiful place for freshly registered married couples to take pictures and celebrate that special moment. At night, it is slightly different. Dark, mysterious and somewhat sinister, this park offers an intriguing start to our exploration that will eventually lead us towards the Mount Emily Swimming Pool (also called River Valley Swimming Pool) later on....

We arrived at the carpark of ROM in the evening, and already, the whole place looks different from the usual day time crowd and laughter of people happy with the ROM ceremonies. It looks a little spooky, as if something will just jump out in between the columns of pillars ahead of us....we walked on....

From another angle, the flow of algae and vegetation seems to be growing up the pillars of ROM, making it look like a potential haunting ground if ever one day, ROM is left deserted and abandoned....

To the right is where Fort Canning Park stands....the familiar majestic entrance is where alot of couples like to take wedding shots from...the lighting of the entrance is nice, showing off the bright white contours and emphasizing the cross on top....it is almost a welcoming invitation to go into the park...which of course we did!


Walking up to the main area of Fort Canning Park, we are once again struck by the nice lightings announcing the grand main building. It almost looked like the White House from the USA, and uncannily, almost like sections of the White House of Nee Soon Camp, another infamous haunted place, unfortunately unaccessible to the public, but which I was fortunate enough to see and even prowl through it at night while doing guard duty during my BMT days at Nee Soon Camp....


The old, greenish window panes at the main building evident of past historic architecture in the early days of Singapore stood out as we entered the main building to visit the toilet before continuing our exploration... The greenish glow gives an almost haunting and sinister feel....but a nice shot....

We proceeded on to the upper part of the Park where some of the old monuments and architecture of the park existed...Most of the monuments point to the past, where the actual place was indeed a Fort during the early days of Singapore...



Interesting replicas of ammunition for cannons, as noticed by an amused Agent MaxX...


First 2 shadow figures spotted for the night near the entrance to one of the Forts in the Park. Actually, its just Agent MaXx and Agent YY walking to explore the place....




We tried to test how heavy it is to open and close the Fort doors. It is indeed very heavy! So if it starts moving by itself later, we will be really baffled....



The big bright moon behind the transmitting tower towards the top of Fort Canning Park. Perhaps the full moon will bring some werewolf into the picture.....


One of a few spooky trees that we saw as we walked towards the top of the Park and sensed that the place was becoming darker and darker. Towards one of the trees, Agent MaXx spotted a possible 'leaf spirit', as one particular leaf was shaking pretty furiously from side to side, whereas the leaves beside were stale and dead.

We continued to observe it from afar....we took some pictures and the pictures appeared almost dark black. It was only after I increased its brightness when reviewing the pictures after the exploration that I noticed a whitish object that seemed to be at the spot where the shaking leaf was...We certainly didn't see any white sheets when we were observing the tree on that day itself....What could that mysterious white patch be? A ghostly figure?

Other shots still revealed a whitish, unidentifiable thing lingering around the tree....


We continued on walking around the darker part of the park. It was indeed almost silent and dead at this part of the park. Some shots reveal several orbs hovering around from the trees and along the side of the walkway....


More orbs, at times the orbs seem to be following us as we walked on. This shot was one taken as I stopped, turned back and decided to shoot what was behind us. Again, despite the lightings, this picture had to be brightened digitally as the actual picture was still to dark to even see anything...


Another spooky tree that we saw along our little walk through the park....Won't be surprised if something is hidden within the mass spikes and veins of the tree....

More spooky darkness and orbs within trees as we walked towards where Mount Emily Swimming Pool is located. It seems as if the environment was building up to lead us to our eventual discovery of the pool...what awaits??

Finally, we found the concrete stairs that lead to the swimming pool....and we proceeded to walk down the stairs towards the pool....The dark 'below' seems to lead us to something scary...where will it lead us to?

After a little walk, we reached the entrance of the swimming pool. It was almost we were being transported back to the 1960s, the whole feel of the place was like a page from the past. We tried to peek inside, but at the same time we noticed security cameras at the top covering most of the angles that would mean we will be unable to go inside to explore the place....


Another view of the side entrance to the pool, there were also security cameras protecting that side of the pool...

A view of the inside of the pool....

This is the pathway that leads up to Mount Emily Swimming Pool. It is just located right beside the famous night clubbing scene of Clarke Quay. Amazingly even though I have passed by this road before, I have absolutely no idea that there was a abandoned swimming pool located right here! It was completely concealed by a tall, high row of trees....

The row of bushes that completely mask this majestic, historic swimming pool away from the stares and notice of the main crowd of party goers that goes through Clarke Quay every weekend. It is almost intriguing how life goes separate ways, for years and years, parted simply by a row of bushes. To the right, the sounds, neon lights and crowds make Clarke Quay a premier clubbing scene, but to the left, it is a dead, abandoned, a little sorrowful pool exists. Thinking back, the sounds and lively scenes that existed at the swimming pool back when it was so popular is being replaced by the scenes to the right of today....


Not being able to enter the pool by the main entrance, we tried to move along the perimeters to see if there are any other possible areas where we can enter to explore the place more...so we walked along the bushed up fence that surrounds the circumference of the pool....The fence was pretty solid, so we could only take shots of how the place looks like from outside....We noticed a white chair inside the pool. Signs that perhaps a security guard could be stationed inside. Or perhaps a life guard of the past? Unlikely, as we didn have plastic chairs back in the 1960s!

A glimpse of the inside of the pool and one of the 3 swimming pools that exists within this place...No signs of life or entities. The neighbouring lights illuminated the pool significantly.....



We walked all the way to the other end of the swimming complex, and the only possible way to enter the swimming pool was from the wire fence....however, entering by this would be too obvious as it was still early in the night, and the security cameras that existed at the entrance may also mean that there will be cameras inside too....Being too near to the main road and having the experience of Tanglin Camp, we decided against infiltrating into this complex.


And so, our tour of Fort Canning Park and the Mount Emily Swimming Pool came to an end. It was inconclusive, but anyway, stories about the place seem to point more to an abandoned pool rather than a haunted pool. Overall the feeling the place seemed to be peaceful and just being forgotten as compared to anything sinister....

We walked back up to the park ,back to our car, and from the view above, we took one last look of the swimming pool. We actually noticed that one of the pool actually had water in it. Isn't that a concern for mosquito breeding??? There is definitely no drainage and the water looks stagnant.

More spooky trees, and one of a possible orb hovering within the tree branches.....



More orbs appearing from below. From this view you can also see clearly how near Clarke Quay is, just a stone's throw away from the swimming complex. Perhaps the orbs are also having their own clubbing party?



More little night scene pictures as we ended this expedition on an early note. Nothing much to report but at least we did draw up more information to the swimming pool and proved that the place did exist during the 1960s and remains abandoned today....

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