Time Out with the Animals

I never tire of the Zoo. That’s where we went on one of the September school break holidays. Surprisingly we got there in about an hour in all by bus from home. The weather, thank God was kind, it drizzled a little for the very initial part of the walk but then disappeared and remained warm but not hot.

Ticket prices have also gone up and up .. something like $5 more per person since the last time we were here. Unfortunately Alr does not qualify as a child any longer, only Arn so total admission was close to $100 with the boat ride on the lake, which was something new to try.

We headed for the boat dock first, walking past the sleeping Tapirs.

The boat ride was a pleasant 15-20 minutes, quiet, at a leisurely pace and smooth, could almost make believe we were NOT in Singapore for a little while. Of course it was too slow for Arn.

We got off close to the new Kidzworld with the Water park, .but.we walked in the opposite direction to visit the old lions and the giraffes first, one of our favourites.  The lazy lions were asleep but the Giraffes were chomping away at the leaves..all quiet.  The fragile forest afforded the kids some excitement when one of the mousedeers let us close enough to pat it. Strangely the butterflies were missing. The bats were flying around more than usual, the sloth was where they usually were and there were more ducks and crown pigeons wandering the footpath.

Arn enjoyed his first ride on a Carousel, we had lunch at KFC of course and we gave the water park, which was pretty crowded a miss.  Do you know there's a pony-like critter called a falabella ?.  

 There is a fair bit of upgrading taking place at the zoo, so of course some enclosures were closed or missing animals like the white tigers.  We gathered some interesting new bits of information such as gharials and gavials – slimmer looking versions of the alligator/crocodile family.  I don’t recall them at all from last visits. 

At the centre, we grabbed Ben & Jerry’s ice cream – I had a fabulous strawberry cheese flavour, the kids had chocolate cookie dough while Alr decided on dimsum.

Since I was working the next day, I planned not to stay beyond 3pm, we took the tram down to the next stop hoping to see the white tigers before we made our way back. But alas they were missing. We walked on; visited the kangaroos, said goodbye to the pygmy hippos and headed for the exit.