Singapore Trip Part 6
Day Six: August 31st, 2015 Today was a late start day. Not necessarily a late rise, just a late start. We iced Nicole’s ankle, it wasn’t much better from the night before, and took it easy in the morning. We left our room and made our way to Kallang Wave Mall to acquire some aloe for my sunburnt shoulders (really… just the top of my shoulders were burned. Nowhere else) and an ankle brace for Nicole. After making our purchases, we went to Ruth and Norm’s for a light lunch before catching a cab out to the Singapore Zoo. Now, I must take a moment to mention something here: we hail from Omaha, which has the highest rated zoo in the world. So my expectations were set pretty high for the Singapore Zoo. It didn’t disappoint. Presentation alone, imho, has Omaha beat with a view, for the River Safari, straight out of Jurassic Park.
Welcome to Jurassic Park. Entrance to the River Safari.
We arrived at the zoo and disembarked our cab. Nicole and I got a short look around the front entrance while Norm picked up an extra pass for Jasper. Ruth and the kids arrived shortly after that and we made our way to the River Safari portion of the zoo. While the Omaha Zoo is one whole entity, the Singapore Zoo has two separate sections: the main zoo and the River Safari. The latter focuses around river critters of seven different rivers including the Mississippi, the Nile, and the Ganges among others. The panda exhibit is also housed in the River Safari, so as part of wandering through a specialized zoo, we also dropped off at the Panda Exhibit.
How cute is that?
Let me say this: the red panda, while not a bear and fierce and furious, is absolutely adorable and cute and, dare I say, better to peer at than the actual Panda? Anyways, we learned tidbits and factoids about pandas along the way, but only saw one of their two pandas (Kaikai, the male). The other, Jaijai, was hiding in her cave in the back of her enclosure.
The red panda will kill you with cuteness.
The regular panda… not so much.
On the way out of the exhibit, Nicole and I purchased a funny souvenir picture with us doing ‘panda claws’ and making a silly face. A good time was had by all as we continued our trek through the River Safari. We came to another place to potentially spend money on two separate zoo rides (a river boat tour and a…something…or other, I don’t remember beyond it being two options). Nicole and I opted to pass on both and we instead moved on to the squirrel monkey exhibit.
The animals here are enclosed and caged off, but to see them, a guest passes through a pair of gates and into an open area where the squirrel monkeys are left to roam. Sure there is a concrete pathway that visitors aren’t to stray from, and railings to further dissuade exploring, but it is all squirrel monkey territory. We made our way along the path watching monkeys no more than a dozen feet away.
Until one decided we were more interesting up close and came onto the concrete path to get a closer look. It even decided to peek into meimei’s stroller before scampering back off into the jungle beyond the path.
Having had our fill of monkey business, we left the squirrel exhibit and met up with Jasper and Norm once more to make our way out to the exit of the River Safari and begin the exploration of the regular zoo.
We entered the zoo and began making our way as quick as Nicole could manage to the giraffe exhibit (with apologies from Ruth that the alligator, or crocodile, exhibit was closed when we visited. Apparently it’s among the best parts of the zoo with a truly visceral view of the animals from directly above with caution to not go over the edge and become food for them) to make it in time to feed the giraffes. We god there with a few minutes to spare and spent some time trying to figure out where the lions were before queuing up to feed the long necked creatures.
I snapped a few photos of the kids feeding the giraffes, then it was Nicole and I’s turn. We held quarters of carrots out for the giraffe and let its prehensile tongue take them from our hand. Gotta say, I hadn’t expected the tongue to be quite so rough. Almost like a cat’s tongue, but a little wetter.
That task done, we continued our venture through the zoo, viewing a couple cats (fewer than I’d have liked), some lizards, some bears, and some more monkeys, we made our way back to the entrance.
Omaha has free range peacocks… Singapore? Free range monitor lizards.
At one point, Nicole and I contemplated doing the Night Safari, but after hearing the price tag (a staggering $48 SGD a person), opted not to. We did a little gift shopping, and on Ruth’s recommendation, had a night out to ourselves.
We enjoyed the sights of the night city from the river taxi as we rode down to the harbor. The view was truly gorgeous and spectacular and in the second leg of our journey, we had the boat all to ourselves. We got a great view of Singapore’s Merlion, and a giant surf board atop a hotel. We didn’t know then, but we also went right past Singapore’s Super Trees.
After disembarking from the river taxi, we made our way into another mall to find a bite to eat for dinner. Feeling adventured out, we opted for a mundane (to us) Hawaiian pizza and juice for dinner. After dinner we looked at a few stores while making our way to the MRT to find our way home.
A quick ride on the train brought us back to our temporary domicile and much desired rest for we had shopping to do on the next day.
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