Singapore Day 4

What a day!

We decided to pack in as much as possible today, as we only have a couple of days left here. So we headed off to Sentosa Island first off, catching the train down to Harbourfront station and then walking the Boardwalk across to the island.

First stop was the obligatory photo in front of the Universal Studios world, of course, closely followed by what was intended to be a brief stop in the American-style candy store, Candylicious. Yum.

K and I headed off on the shuttle bus to find Underwater World, where they have a fish spa, where Turkish Hammam fish nibble at your feet to remove dead skin, before having a reflexology massage. This was incredibly ticklish, but highly recommended! My feet feel much smoother now.

Then we headed back to the main Resort World section to see the giant Merlion statue and have a Pink Thyme Lemonade at Slappy Cakes (a make-your-own pancake place with hotplates built into the tables. The lemonade was nice though!) before catching the monorail back to Singapore.

We grabbed some food from a food hall on our way through for lunch (avocado milkshake is really creamy and tasty!) before hopping in a taxi to take us to the zoo for our next two activities: The River Safari and the Night Safari.

The river safari is based around the biggest rivers in the world, so there’s sections on the Amazon, the Nile, the Ganges, and even the Murray! (all of two metres of exhibits for the Murray though). We did the Amazon River Quest boat ride first. We were under the impression that it was an actual boat, but instead it was a mechanical boat on wheels that trundled around a water-filled channel, going past many animal exhibits and occasionally going down some “rapids” where we rolled down a 1m hill in the water. It was fun, but the rest of the safari was actually more interesting, with things like the beautiful giant otters (just like big dogs wearing flippers) and the phenomenal panda exhibit.

The Fire Foxes (red panda) are gorgeous, and they look like foxes! They were all sleeping when we came through unfortunately, but one of the pandas was awake and munching on some of his 20kg of bamboo for the day! He really looked like a human wearing an animal suit – not sure if it’s because they have thumbs, or whether it’s just that the black patches around the eyes make them look so fake, but they really look human!

 

 

The fish didn’t quite have the same emotional appeal, but there were piranha who all turn to stare balefully en masse at any humans who look into their tank, stingrays and all sorts of aquatic mammals too.

Next stop was the Night Safari. Nicely played by the Zoo, all of the other exhibits close at 6pm, but the Night Safari doesn’t open its doors until 7pm for a 7.30 start, so there’s an enforced hour of sitting around either eating overpriced food or shopping in the overpriced gift shops! 🙂

The Night Safari is completely worth the wait though. As you wait for it to open, there are fire breathing dancers, and then the Creatures of the Night performance showcases some of the better trained animals in this part of the zoo, such as otters who recycle, civets who dangle from the ropes above our heads, and gorgeous owls who stare thoughtfully at the audience. There was even a large boa constrictor who was casually draped around a “volunteer”s shoulders as he looked increasingly worried.

Since the queue for the tram ride around the exhibit was about 300 people deep, we decided to do the walking trails first. The Fishing Cat trail was first up, and included my favourite, the fishing cat, who was obligingly posed, trying to fish while the noisy humans kept scaring away all his fish.

There were bats, deer and mouse-deer, more civets, small-clawed otter, larger animals like the lions and various cattle, but we were a but disappointed in the leopard. He seemed to take us in dislike, as it was over in one side of the enclosure when we were on the other side, then we walked to the other side prompting it to move to the other side, and then it all happened again! It even came right up to the edge of the enclosure to look at the other groups as we were scurrying between the two sides… ah well!

The servets were absolutely gorgeous, coming right up to us to check us out, and allowing us to take photos even though it was really dark by this point. Wish I could fit one into my carry-on, but I don’t think Dinah would be too impressed!! 🙂

We ended up back at the main entrance area as the crowd was diminishing somewhat, which was perfectly timed. The queue for the tram only had about 20 people in it now, so we were able to hop onto the first tram that arrived, and it took us for a wider circle of the exhibits. This time we saw more of the larger animals, and closer, such as the hyenas, pigs, hippo, rhino, and the elusive tiger that we couldn’t see earlier (but he was safely behind glass!)

We returned to the hotel utterly exhausted but really happy. We experienced a lot today!