Exploring The Flora Park, where big trees and animals live side by side.

A perfect place to escape from the hustle and bustle of the city.

Flora Park, probably one of the natural parks I visited the most in the past. I don’t remember my childhood memories here, because I live quite far from this park when I was a child. But I remember my parents often took me here when I had a little sister. First of all, this park is free to enter. We only need to pay for the parking fee. This park is not really located in a city center compared to other parks, but it’s pretty large and can be said to be complete attraction as family recreation area.

This park was officially opened since 2017, and functions as the city's lungs sort of, to reduce pollution emissions and create cool air. Called Flora Park, this place is filled with various vegetation. If I’m not mistaken, in the front area there’s a board listing of the plant collections. I also remember it used to have information boards that were installed on each trees so that visitors could have more knowledge about the plants in this place. Some plants that can be explored there are tamarind, banyan, and mundu trees. The trees looks so tall and shady.

In the past, this park already had several playground area for children equipped with swings, seesaws, slides, and others. But when I visited this park this year, it seems that they improve it a lot. The playground looks more comfortable and clean than before, so parents don’t have to worry when their children playing around. There are also several nice seating areas around it so parents can relax too. This place is a great space to spend time with family especially with many attraction provided.

Next, this flora park also has a mini library. This library is like a semi-open space which is a good idea for kids, so they don’t feel intimidating to enter. It’s obviously free as well and visitors can sit there to read book that they like. But unfortunately, it was closed when I visited and I don’t know the reason. I hope they open it as soon as possible so that the children can have access to all those books again.

This park is obviously full of flora. But I don’t think people can (or even be interestd in) recognizing each type of plant. Because I can’t find many flowers here, so all the plants just look as green leaves and stuff. But there are definitely many different sections.

For example, there is a corner for plant collection called TOGA. There are pandan, jinten, and many more. TOGA is an abbreviation that actually means types of plants that are planted in the yard and have properties as traditional medicine. So those are herbal plants, and at the moment I have two kind of these plants so seeing more of them in this park is makes me unnecessarily happy.

Before we continue, let’s appreciate this tree below. I don’t think I managed to captured it well enough, but how did its branch grow like that? I seriously want to know😁

The next area is a fish pond with a fountain in the middle. If we look at it from afar, it pretty much looks like somewhere else and not in the busy city like Surabaya, because of the big trees surrounding it. And then behind this fish pond is a giant bird cage. It looks much bigger than I can capture below.

There used to be many animals like cassowaries, turkeys, parrots, peacocks. But now I think the quantity is less than before. Nevertheless, this giant bird cage always attracts visitors, especially children who seems like want to learn about animals and what their habitats are like. I’m not quite sure if visitors can feed these animals in this cage, because I have never seen anyone try to do it.

However, if we want to experience feeding animals, we can go to the deer area. There are dozens of deer that are allowed to be fed by visitors. I’m pretty sure we can bring our own vegetables to feed them, but there are also vendors selling vegetables if we don’t bring it. I think this activity is great for children because they can experience direct interaction with the animals.

There’s also an outbound area for older children. I forgot to toke a picture, but I think parents should accompany their children if they want to play in that area. And lastly, right in front of the entrance, there are many culinary spot that visitors can try. That’s a culinary center that provides variety of foods and beverages. Various street foods can also be found around the area. So it’s really convenient place to hangout and spend time with family, even for a little break from the hustle bustle of the city.

The most important thing is that Flora Park is not just a place for recreation, but also an important part of nature conservation. There are educational values to invite visitors to protect the environment, especially as an example for children. I’m glad that a place like this still easy to access, so kids nowadays don’t always just go to malls or shopping centers. They can learn live side by side with those big trees and animals every now and then.

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