Sun Plaza Park, Tampines: Power Walk, Skateboards, Playground Talk And Other Recreational Sports

Sun Plaza Park, Tampines: Power Walk, Skateboards, Playground Talk And Other Recreational Sports

Skateboard enthusiasts were having a rolling good time when I arrived at Sun Plaza Park in Tampines estate bounded by Tampines Avenue 7 and Tampines Avenue 9. Groups of youths floated across Sun Plaza Park’s amphitheatre terrace on their well-worn skateboards as the performed their routines for the umpteenth time. Next to these skateboarders, another group of young men, probably from Tampines estate, rehearsed their singing to the beat of traditional drums, unperturbed by the sound of clashing skateboards.

Elsewhere, a banner for Power Walk, a Health Promotion Board initiative for Singaporeans to develop healthy exercise habits through brisk-walking every Sunday from 8am to 10am fluttered in the afternoon breeze. Like-minded participants from Tampines and neighbouring estates will gather for an instructor-led event under the Power Walk programme until 18 May. Each Power Walk session about 2 hours, with a powerful combination of exercises like calisthenics (bending, stretching, etc), followed by the actual “Power Walk” or brisk walking around Tampines and Pasir Ris estates before a cooling off period when participants rehydrate themselves with free drinks and finally switch off their “power”. Details can be found here.

Behind this campaign banner, children needed no reminder for such exercises as they romped around playground gadgets in this neighbourhood estate in Tampines. I noticed that the playground talk amongst caregivers who surround Sun Plaza Park’s playground was a familiar cacophony of native and foreign tongues like neighbourhoods elsewhere and not peculiar to Tampines estate.

An interesting sport facility at Sun Plaza Park is a French-inspired game of petanque. This sport involves throwing a fist-sized ball at a target around a miniature golf-like course pass stationary markers. The well-kept lawns and wooden markers intrigued me, as I have never seen anyone play this sport.

There is a space where exhibits of various shapes and textures allow visitors a tactile environment to explore. Sun Plaza Park’s special sculptures like a slice of wall-climbing cliff studded with lumps and bumps, bright blue bent pipes rising from the ground and avant-garde reclining chairs add to the mysterious appeal of Sun Plaza Park.

A jogging cum cycling track envelops this park located in Tampines that has connections to Pasir Ris Park to the northeast and Bedok Reservoir to the southwest. Park benches are available for migratory joggers, cyclists and the occasional photographer like me, underneath the MRT train tracks that run across the middle of the park.

I like the open spaces in Sun Plaza Park that allow soccer aficionados, kite-flyers, tai-chi practitioners and anyone who appreciates out door places to enjoy them.

The Tampines bus interchange and Tampines MRT station is just a five-minute walk away for me to get here. Multiple carparking lots are also available in the HDB neighbourhood nearby if you intend to drive here. Kopi-tiams are plentiful in the nearby shopspaces for rest and rejuvenation after a hard day playing or like me, photographing in Sun Plaza Park.

Tampines’ Sun Plaza Park is a peaceful well-endowed compact park that brims with sporting options that will thrill sports enthusiasts in your family, without displeasing sports-phobic members who live nearby.

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