Bukit Batok: A Mining Relic and a Memorial

Bukit Batok Nature Park is one of the many nature parks in Singapore. At the heart of the park is a deep and still pond with a red cliff wall as its background. The government transformed this abandoned quarry site into a place where people can jog along cemented pathways or read a book on one the benches. This is one thing I admire about Singapore; they know how to maximize their very limited resources.

 The park has jogging and hiking paths leading to various lookout points. It is literally a mini forest smacked in a highly urbanized city. Although regular maintenance is evident, the ambiance of wilderness remains.

The Lorong Sesuai part of the park is the chosen location of the Japanese during the WWII as a memorial site for Japan’s fallen soldiers.  Destroyed after the war, all that remains today is a memorial plaque (erected in 1981) with 2 entrance pillars at the bottom of 120 concrete steps. These steps now lead to a transmission tower. Bukit Batok Memorial is one of Singapore’s 11 WWII sites.

Bukit Batok is not a known tourist spot but if you’re staying long in Singapore, I believe that it is worth looking at. This park is one of the many sites that shows how Singapore can efficiently make use of its land and comfortably merge the past with the present.

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