[TRAVELS] Kusu Island / 龟屿进香 @ Singapore
Even though I live in cities (Singapore, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Jakarta) all my life, I love to venture out to islands and cultural places. Watching movies and shopping during weekends does not top my to-do-activity-list at all. My most adventurous friend in Singapore, Steph is always up to date on the places to explore in Singapore. Since she knows that I love hiking and exploring all sorts of places, she asked me if I wanted to join her and her parents to Kusu Island last Saturday and I was all up for it!
Kusu Island / 龟屿进香
We met at National Museum of Singapore located near Dhoby Ghaut station to do the registrations before taking the bus to Marina South Pier. After which, we took the ferry from Island Cruise to Kusu Island and it was only a 15 minutes ride. It costs SGD$18 round trip but beware of the ferry schedule as they only have two timings from Monday-Friday, three timings on a Saturday but more timings on Sundays and public holidays. Kusu Island is located very close to St John’s Island so it would be nice going island hopping during the weekends. Kusu Island is a very small island - only 8.5 hectares so you will be done exploring this island within 2 hours. It was previously 1.2 hectares in 1975 but it undergo reclamation as people could only walk to the temples during low tides. There is a tortoise wishing area, which I did not snap shot of but people usually donate coins and make a wish there. These donations will be sent to Sentosa as Kusu Island is maintained by Sentosa. For everyone who does not know, Kusu means tortoise in Hokkien.
Datok Kong
Our first exercise of the day was walking up 152 steps to the sacred Muslim shrines. There are many writings on the yellow wall prior to the entrance of the shrines. The older generation usually pray to strike lottery for 4D, while the younger generation pray to pass their exams. How funny when you observe the differences between the generations. The Datok Kong consists of three Muslim shrines (Syed Abdul Rahman, Mother & Sister) as depicted in the pictures. There is a Malay caretaker of the shrine, who blessed people that donates by praying in Hokkien and Mandarin. I was quite impressed with his prayers as I watched him blessed others. A yellow string will be given to you at the end of the blessing session. There will usually be more people wanting to be blessed by that man during the pilgrimage period.
Along the 152 steps up the shrine, you will see the yellow strings of blessings being tied to the branches of the trees. The forth picture depicts that the wounded branch has been treated. The fifth picture portrays that the person, who hung that red plastic bag filled with a fan, is praying for a baby girl. A more common sight is red plastic bags filled with stones as more people tend to pray for a baby boy. How sad to see such gender preference.
Da Bo Gong / 大伯公
We did not have much time venturing the Chinese Temple as we had to catch the ferry at 1pm. The fifth picture symbolizes this island, a tortoise island. Turtle is a symbol of longevity in the Chinese beliefs. The seventh picture shows a child bearing tree. Chinese often placed something to hang on the branches of this miniature tree so as to pray for a child.
Head to Marina South Pier:
NEAREST MRT: TANJONG PAGAR;
Board bus 402 at International Plaza
Ferry Schedule:
Monday to Friday: 10am, 2pm
Saturday: 9am, 12pm, 3pm
Sunday & Public Holidays: 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm
Cost: Adult $18; Child $12; Return trip
It was really nice getting out of the city for a few hours to a less crowded island to learn more about Singapore’s heritage and culture.
swisscheese*
