[New post] Playground Review: Dragon Playground (Lor 6 Toa Payoh)
Jack Chew posted: " 28 Lor 6 Toa Payoh, Singapore 310028 (link) The Dragon Playground is the mother of all vintage playground designs. It is so recognisable and etched in the public consciousness that there are a wide range of merchandise based on the Dragon Playground. "
The Dragon Playground is the mother of all vintage playground designs. It is so recognisable and etched in the public consciousness that there are a wide range of merchandise based on the Dragon Playground. The one merchandise which I thought was most practical would be the door stopper (below).
We had wanted to bring our little one to a pilgrimage to a Dragon Playground for a while. I had previously written about my beef with playgrounds nowadays being essentially cookie cutter and mostly soulless. When I was growing up in the 1980s, playgrounds in Singapore were sand pits with stone and metal structures built on them. So for the pilgrimage, we picked THE Dragon Playground that fit this archetype — the one at Lor 6 Toa Payoh (circa 1979).
We got ready the little one for a few scrapes by dressing her up in pants. We also packed sand toys as if we were going to the beach — just in case the little one wanted to play with the sand.
So off we go. We arrived in the vicinity of Block 31 which was one of the apartment blocks closest to the playground. From there, we could see the playground in a distance but we saw no visible foot path to access it — just an empty field surrounding it (see below).
The lonely dragon…
I thought it was a really puzzling decision to locate a playground in the middle of a field. There must previously have been some apartment blocks next to it so I did some research and found that four buildings around it had been demolished in 2014. So this was what it used to look like (photo from AddGrainOnEarth).
The Dragon when it was in its element…
It took us some time to find a meandering pavement that led us around the field and to the playground. On the way, we went through what looked like a worksite or a place to dump gondolas and other equipment (see below).
An obstacle on the way to meet the Dragon…
Finally, we got to meet the Dragon. We were the only ones there but previous visitors left visible signs of their presence in the form of plastic water bottles and Frappuccino cups. Missus and I thought that it's become a place for folks to hang out and shoot the breeze — maybe not so much a place for kids anymore…
Up close with the Dragon…
How did our little one take to the Dragon. Have sand will play… The first thing that our little girl did was to get cracking with her sand toys to build sand castles — which she had a policy to immediately destroy upon completion. Little one had great fun doing this a few times before she moved on to the main attraction.
Phase 1 of housing project under the Dragon…
By this point, the Dragon only had two terrazzo slides. It used to have swings fixed to the Dragon's "ribs" but these appeared to have been removed for safety reasons (see below).
No more kids swinging from the Dragon's ribs…
To access the slides, little one had the options of either a step ladder or a ramp that led to the "ribs" which curved upwards gently to the Dragon's head where the top of the slides were located. Little one preferred the step ladder which she climbed without any problem.
The little one loved the slides. I had concerns that she might've found it too steep and fast and she might fall on her bump into the sand but such fears were unfounded — as you can see below.
Wheeee!
When we took a break to decide where to head to next, nature intervened in the form of a threateningly big wasp (about 4-5cm long). I had the experience of being bitten on my finger by a much smaller one and it felt like I was getting electrocuted. Not wanting to find out if the pain scaled to the wasp's size, we vamoosed as fast as we could.
Is wasp perhaps a regular visitor since Dragon is getting less human visitors
After our hasty farewell to the Dragon, we had much more pleasant encounters with nature as below.
A caterpillar of a tawny coster? Spotted by me while trying to shepherd little one when she wandered off.A collared kingfisher? Missus spotted it flying and it eventually perched on a tree. Not sure where it fishes. Maybe Bishan-Ang Moh Kio Park?
Some thoughts
The excursion to meet the Dragon was great fun for our little family. It was nice to finally see an old school playground that's not paved over by rubber mats and replaced by structures made of plastic-like material.
I thought that the whole thing about playing up the heritage of such old playgrounds (the many merchandise) didn't really match the reality of how the playgrounds themselves were essentially being abandoned.
Not sure how it could be otherwise but I thought that it'll be great if the Dragon could have its modern equivalent offsprings instead of being kept but abandoned. Perhaps the relevant agencies should work with playground equipment manufacturers to give birth to these offsprings.
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