Tourists Again: The Zoo and The Quay

Since we conquered the immigration conundrum, we've had more time to resume exploring what Singapore offers. There are many more cultural and amusement venues than we'll likely be able to visit, if for no other reason than financial. So, we pick and choose with an eye to entertainment and educational value to Sofie, an eye to ease of transportation, and an eye to our pocketbook.

Last Saturday, we visited the Singapore Zoo, billed as the largest rainforest zoo in the world. Rainforest equates to hot and steamy, but we spent the better part of the day and Sofie had a great time. She wanted more than Hapny and I felt capable of in the heat. It is worthy of a return trip, perhaps when her daddy is here in June or July. Part of the adventure was the challenge of taking the MRT five stops north to Ang Mo Kio, farther than we had gone in that direction, and then transferring to a public bus at the adjacent terminal, our first bus excursion. We managed to get to our destination without any problems and it saved us probably $30 in cab fare one way.  The trip took about an hour and it was nice to see parts of Singapore unfamiliar to us that were away from the downtown skyscrapers.

Mumu, Sofie and faux otters.

The zoo is located next to a reservoir and there's plenty of lush landscape to view along the way.  We opted to pay an extra $5 apiece for the inpark tram, so the total price for tickets was $88.  It appears to be a well-managed and animal friendly zoo with large natural habitat enclosures, but that does make animal viewing more of a zoom lens type experience, so it made more sense to take photos of Sofie with an array of sculptural animals erected along the way. That was good thinking on the zoo planners' part, I think. We could have done a better job of planning when to visit particular exhibits, so we missed the elephant show and zoomed past the giraffe and zebra enclosures on the tram, which only stopped at designated points along the way.

Our favorite display was the polar bear exhibit because we managed to arrive for feeding time and got to see the "great ice bear" diving for hunks of meat thrown into the water.

The tank had a glass display which made viewing easy. We enjoyed a surprisingly delicious lunch of spaghetti bolognese at a massive food court.

There was a quite nice "kidzworld" section offering pony rides, and a "wet play"  area for wading under sprays and spouts with a waterslide. Sofie and her mom took advantage by wading in to cool off in the mist. Despite the momentary cool down, we wilted after several hours and left before seeing absolutely everything. It made for a very lovely outing.
On Mother's Day Sunday, we chose to do absolutely nothing except accompany Sofie to the playground and then for a nice relaxing dip in the pool.

Sofie overlooking the Singapore River quay.

Aron extended an invitation for us to dine out somewhere nice, so we opted to do that on Monday afternoon, an overcast day with a nice breeze perfect for exploring the river walk and boat quay, along which are a series of restaurants offering al fresco dining with menus from around the world. We liked the seafood fare of an Italian restaurant, which proved to be a good choice. Since it was midafternoon on a work day sandwiched between Mother's Day and Vesak Day holidays, it was a perfect time with few tourists or citizen workers. How fortunate for those employed in the adjacent towers of this financial hub to have such environs for enjoying their lunch hour.

Singapore's founder, Stamford Raffles.

Afterward we walked up one side, crossed the North Bridge and down the other side of the river past the Parliament House and the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, the British statesman called the "father of Singapore," who first landed at that spot in 1819. Singapore remained a British Crown Colony until independence in 1957. We crossed over the river again and took a few minutes to visit the lobby of the Fullerton Hotel, a beautiful colonial era structure that was built as a post office before conversion to luxury hotel. A short walk to the MRT station at Raffles Place and soon we were home again mulling options for our next adventure.