Day 2 – Lions & Tigers & Stormtroopers

Sarah is writing the blog again today because, well basically, Alan is too lazy.  If he can be bothered to comment, it will be in red. I'm on holiday and I'm tired!

This morning we were up with the sun, which wasn’t that difficult with sunrise scheduled for 7.15am. We were out the door at 8.10am, straight into a taxi and on the way to Singapore Zoo, arriving just as it opened at 8.30am.

Having not yet had breakfast, we checked out the options at the front of the zoo and found KFC, pizza or porridge. No help there so we decided to start walking and look for food later. 

The zoo, as we had heard, was spectacular, set amongst a rainforest surrounded by a beautiful river. Unfortunately the photos don’t do the river justice.

The enclosures are lovely and all the animals look happy and well fed, a little better than the ones we saw in Calgary Zoo last year. Am I the only person in the world who likes Calgary zoo?

Of course I’m a huge fan of the big cats and we were lucky to be there when the White Tigers were let out into their enclosure. Just like our little ones at home when we let them go out into the enclosure of a morning, they get very excited.

Unfortunately the food situation didn’t improve inside the zoo and we had to opt for KFC.

After our food and brief reprieve from the heat and high humidity, we were back out there to do the second half of the zoo. I won’t bore you with heaps of zoo photos but I will share two more; the elephant doing a painting and the bizarre signage around the zoo.

After three hours we had seen the zoo and the heat was starting to get the better of us.  We were surprised to see the number of people just arriving, in the heat of the day.

A taxi back to the hotel (we really love them here) and we took some time to rest in the cool of our hotel before bracing for the heat again.

Alan had a plan.  We would use our hop on hop off tickets and go and do two different loops, getting back to the Flyer at 6.30 and then we’d go up at dusk.  Good plan, but he didn’t take into account that the people who run these bus tours will do whatever they want.

The first loop was to take us through the Civic District, Chinatown, Little India, Kampong Glam and Arab Street and take 40 minutes.  All he did was take his friend for a quick drive (he was the only person other than us on the bus) to Little India and then back to the Flyer.  Not quite what we had in mind.

The second loop to leave at 5.30pm and do some of the same area but also do Sentosa Island, Orchard Street and back to the Flyer at 6.30pm.  After 3 minutes of being on this loop (and this time we weren’t the only ones) we discovered he was already off the map.  Too bad if you were someone waiting at bus stops in those areas waiting for this bus.

We did get a quick look at Sentosa and can’t wait until Monday afternoon so we can have a better look. 

We knew that there was a parade happening tonight, starting at 8pm,  the Chingay Parade, but what we didn’t know was that the bus, although scheduled to go back to the Flyer, wasn’t in fact going back and we were dumped out near Raffles Hotel.  That wasn’t too bad, we were wanting to get a look anyway.

Then we had to work out how to get back to the Flyer and decided to try the MRT (train). Thankfully there was a very helpful train employee who explained how we get tickets and how, at the other end, we put our tickets back into the machine to get our $1 deposit each ticket back. Must be a way of keeping the station clean.  If people want to get their money back, don’t throw your ticket on the ground.

By this time the crowd for the parade was huge and we shuffled along with them back to the Flyer.

We don’t usually put photos of the kids (Neville & Trevor) on the blog, but I can’t resist with this one.  After taking  the photo, the white stormtooper said to his friends “that was different”.  So glad we could oblige. Everyone loves a having a photo with our adorable little boys.

It was a good time to go up the Flyer with the sun having just set.  Also, we got to see parts of the parade from the air.

There were too many people, not surprisingly, down around the Flyer that we came back to the hotel.  The restaurant downstairs was having a private function but we were able to sit at the bar and have a drink and a snack.  Oh and it also allowed Alan to watch some of the soccer. (boring). I wasn’t very hungry so just had some calamari and Alan had a burger, and Manchester United scored in the first half. Alan, in disgust, decided to return to the room with me. I would have stayed to watch the 2nd half if Manchester United were losing.

Before I finish off, let me just tell you that I can’t find a comfortable seat in Singapore, unless it is in a taxi. Not at bus shelters, not on buses, not in any restaurants. Even the chair in the hotel room is uncomfortable, which is why I’m writing this perched on the bed.