Tuesday 16th November - Singapore
So here I am sat in my hotel room in Singapore. I've only been in this city for 7 hours and I'm completely and utterly in love with it!
I've booked into the Ibis which is lovely. The room is well air conditioned and I'm on floor 15! It's actually 2am and I need to go to bed as I'm up early for a breakfast with the Orang-utans at Singapore zoo, but I couldn't wait to tell you about my evening.
I checked in and had a shower as the day of doing nothing on board the 'Beirut ship' was tiring. I headed out into the city in search for a sushi restaurant……..I don't know why but I fancied sushi. In the end I found a fine little restaurant called 'Sho Teppan' in Raffles city shopping centre where I had salmon, rice salad and soup. I thoroughly enjoyed my meal eating with chop sticks :) I was offered a knife and fork but I thought 'fork it, when in Singapore……'
I received a few texts from various friends while wondering around so I decided to go and meet a few of them as they were around the same area as I was, and I hadn't managed to say goodbye to a couple of them so it seemed only right. We met at Raffles hotel where Nick (the Ents & retail director from OV) was staying for 2 nights! We asked to see his room, he obliged………VERY posh! (I laid on his bed, and went for a wee - 2 separate events I must add!)
We then all wet to the Long Bar in Raffles home of the Singapore Sling and each had one, something that I was assured by the others just had to be done, it cost $25 (about £12.50) but hey I can add it to the list of 'I've dones' now.
I'm still in awe of how clean, tidy and safe Singapore is. I walked back from where Raffles is to my hotel (a 15 minutes walk) and i didn't once feel uncomfortable. I can honestly say I've never felt so at ease any where before in my life.
I'm going to call it a night now as it's 2.15am and I'm up in a few hours!
I'll add to this tomorrow after my day and this post can be extra long……
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I've got a feeling this blog will be my longest yet, as I have so much to tell you!!!
First I got up ridiculously early due to me not being able to hold in my excitement. I got a taxi to where the zoo is as it's about half an hour drive from the city. It cost me $24 SGD (SIngapore Dollars) which is exactly double the british pound at the moment.
The breakfast I'd pre-booked started at 9am and at 9.15 they bathed 2 of the Elephants in the bath next door (not a regular sized bath, smart arses more like a pond!) You could go and feed them if you wanted. I went through and took photos, I didn't really want to pay to feed them though, I stroked their trunks and they repaid me by spraying water on me!
At 9.30am the Orang-utans came from the trees and sat themselves on a shelf that they're clearly used to sitting on. A lady gave a short talk on them all and then we had an opportunity to have our photos taken with them, The best thing for me to see today was that the Orangs aren't locked up in cages, most of the animals have free rein, well to a certain extent any way - they couldn't just go and catch a bus if they wanted but you know what I mean!
During breakfast I learnt about an Orang-utan called 'Ah Meng' who was housed at Singapore zoo for many years. If you're interested in more info follow this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ah_Meng
She is to Singapore what Snowflake was to Barcelona - god bless them both x
I learnt loads today actually, I tend to try and pick up as much info as I can when I visit zoos. There's never enough time in the day! Here's some of the educational things that spring to mind from todays trip:
Did you know that one of the ways you can tell the difference between an Alligator and a Crocodile is because an Alligators 4th bottom tooth (from the front) can't be seen when it's mouth is closed yet a Crocodiles 4th bottom tooth can be seen. Although my guess is that if your close enough to either an Alligator or a Crocodile to be able to see it's 4th bottom tooth it's mouth won't be closed anyway!!!
Also did you know that a Rhino's horn is a build up of hair?!
Oh and it would take 10 Pigmy Hippos to equal the size of a regular Hippo! I saw a baby pigmy hippo today, imagine how small it was?! If there wasn't a pane of glass separating us I would have tried to dress it in a baby's romper suit that said 'I love Singapore zoo' and a matching and smuggled him out as my baby! (don't bother with the resemblance comments!!)
So having spent the entire morning wearing my sun glasses and sweating from the humid heat, as I sat down to watch the 'Elephants at work & play' show the heavens opened. It was monsoon weather and I thought right Kerry, you've got a waterproof camera a waterproof jacket and you're pretty waterproof lets just do it………..I couldn't have been any wetter within seconds! I was walking around with the biggest smile on my face! Anyone who knows me knows I absolutely adore the rain. Everyone around me was taking cover and probably looking at the strange 'special' lady in a white head band who was smiling…..but I didn't care. That's one thing I've always said in life don't let the weather dictate what you want to do, natural disasters do that too often, rain is a blessing and I soaked it up today. To the point that when I got back to my hotel 7 hours later my skin on my feet was so wrinkled!!
When the zoo closed at 6pm I ventured over to the Night Safari part and waited until 7pm before I was allowed to enter. By this time if I'm honest I was absolutely whacked! But none the less I went on to the Tram and was driven around the park (a separate park to the zoo) to see all the nocturnal animals! This was a completely different experience altogether.
The guide continuously asks people not to have their flashes on there cameras due to it dazzling the animals as well as it probably pissing most of the animals off - some people are so stupid there were constant flashes and most people were really getting annoyed with the 'stupid few' grrr makes me so mad!
There was a show on called 'Creatures of the night' which was excellent. A combination of script from animal trainers and animals making appearances themselves. At one point the presenter acted as though one of the animals had gone missing, he asked for the lights to go up and asked various rows of seats to stand. The presenter along with 5 other trainers opened a door in the floor which was where some people had been sitting and pulled out a snake which took all 6 of them to lift out and carry!!! Ha I was laughing, some people were screaming!
I called it a night at 9.15pm and got in a taxi back to the hotel, in only cost me $14 SGD back?!
I'm now about to call it a night as I have another jam packed day tomorrow, I bet you the reader can't wait………….x
