nature >>>

day 3

i cannot overstate this enough: asian 7-11 is so good. we grabbed onigiri, fruit and pocari sweat for breakfast before the big day of the zoo. the singapore zoo is actually just one of four parks in the mandai wildlife reserve (zoo, river wonders, bird paradise and night safari). we decided on a two park pass because of lack of time to make the four park pass worth it. for the second park, we struggled between choosing bird paradise or river wonders. in the end, we picked river wonders because, believe it or not, they have pandas there. they are the softest of soft powers, even in diplomacy. also, river wonders has manatees, so how could we pass that up?

the zoo was pretty standard except that monkeys sort of roam free and that there is a tram system in case it's too hot/humid to walk the whole thing.

on the way back from the north nature reserves, we stopped at bukhit timah nature reserve to look around and see the hindhede quarry. there, an older singaporean man also taking pictures told me how happy he was to see a young person so interested in nature–made my day!

we got dinner down there (a street full of different cuisines and people outside to try to get you to pick them). i know i know, but we did chinese again 雜醬麵 (za jiang mian), panfried bao and chinese broccoli yum! then we were in search of a singapore sling back by the hotel, but the bar we went to didn’t serve it!??? not serving the drink named after where you are located seems a little weird...anyway we split a bottle of peach soju instead.

NOTE (and my favorite thing ever): all our transport so far has been MRT or bus (PUBLIC TRANSIT)

♡蘇晨

pov JV

Ha ha by "older man" photographer, Sophia means a guy who was about my age ;-)

The zoo was impressive! Primates have a large area and the orangutans can actually move into trees outside of their "enclosure" - it's not really an enclosure. We were really close to a lot of animals that typically would be further away or seen through barriers in a US zoo. The lions for example were pretty darn close and there was no glass separating their habitat. In the aviary, lemurs were roaming around, inches from us, we could have easily touched them or fed them if we were willing to risk being arrested and kicked out! We were also inches away from a fruit bat, and she showed off for us, flapping her wings and eating fruit while hanging upside down. The local wild monkeys were also really close, they peruse the zoo and make mischief. We saw a pair of them pulling all the trash out of a bin. Pretty funny! We saw a lot of animals I hadn't seen before including the adorable Indian Star Tortoise. And HUGE pelicans! Wow! Lots of plants too, it was a great experience (except for the zoo restaurant, don't go there). The River Adventure was also interesting and boy was the chilled Panda habitat a welcome respite from the outdoor humidity and heat. The pandas are incredibly efficient at skinning bamboo - they quickly peel off the bark and eat the rest, the woody stalks. We sat in front of a big floor-to-ceiling aquarium tank to watch the manatees slowly cruise around; very relaxing. Oh - the Indonesian Catfish, HUGE - can weigh as much as 5 humans! Also a new creature for me to see.

The Buhkit nature reserve - so many unusual bird sounds. We saw monkeys and lizards, the photographer who was there had seen a wild peacock but it was gone by the time we looked for it. There is a granite quarry that has filled with rain water, very pretty. Saw another monkey walking down the street on our way to the restaurant.

As we were leaving the restaurant where we had dinner, the sun was setting and oh boy were the birds happy - the trees exploded with chirping.