Wednesday, February 25, 2015

All About Pandas at Singapore Zoo, and a Few Other Stops

Getting pretty good at navigating the amazing bus system here in Singapore, I ventured out on a long trek to the Zoo. They have four separate sections in the zoo, each with it's own admission of course, and I picked out two to visit. The first was the River Safari, which highlighted the wildlife and ecosystem of all the major rivers of the world and the reason I picked it is because this is where the two panda bears, given to Singapore as a gift from China, live. But on the way to them there were fishies great and small. 

This toothy guy was not impressed

Gorgeous stingrays

Catch ya later alligator

Adorable red panda, maybe even cuter than it's more popular cousin

Kai Kai, the limelight hog. Jia Jia, his female friend, was too shy and nowhere to be found.

I went back to the red pandas many times, they were just too cute.

The big galoot just paced around the back door until feeding time.




The zookeeper hid treats for Kai Kai all over his habitat home, probably to force the lazy butt into some exercise, and he quickly and thoroughly cleared all the food that was stashed away, leaving chewed up pieces of bamboo all over the place. That didn't stop dozens of tourists from snapping happily away at his every blink and turn. It was hard not to get caught up with everyone else, and I now have way more photos and videos of this darn bear then is probably healthy.

To celebrate finally getting out of that part of the exhibit I got myself a bottle of water and a panda shaped bao with chocolate pudding inside. It wasn't that tasty, but it was adorable and I know Donna would be proud :D


The tour continued with other animals and other rivers, but I mostly hung around the sea otters. They're the most playful, happy, lithe creatures alive and it made me endlessly happy just to watch them play their many games.

Ibis from the Nile river


This pair found a small rock and were chasing it around the tank, 
trying to steal it from each other


These guys just played Follow The Leader, doing laps and 
crazy turns around the pool, snout to tail

It's kind of fuzzy, but as soon as this guy got a treat, he took off at crazy speed.
Probably scared his buddy in the back would steal it.

"I'm trying to sleep here! Turn off the darn light!"

"I don't know who put this here, but this leaf is not delicious"

"I have a coconut and you don't. Neener, neener"

These piranhas were definitely creepy. They don't really swim much, 
they just hover and stare and wait for food... 

I was planning on staying for the night safari that evening, but two hours before they'd open the sky opened up instead and a heavy rain/lightning storm began. I waited for a bit to see if it would die down and then talked to one of the employees, who said that if the rain didn't end the exhibit wouldn't open for the day, so I took the bus back to town. As soon as I stepped off the bus in Chinatown...the rain stopped, the sun came out, and it was like nothing ever happened. Oh well, I joined a few people who work at my hostel for dinner and went back to watch Hero 6 on the TV in the lobby with them. 


I took a day off from running around and read for an afternoon, but then since it didn't look like I was going to get to leave anytime soon, I ventured out once more. I visited Little India, as well as a few other sites, but I think at this point I'm running out of enthusiasm for this city. The vacation feeling is wilting and my conscience is starting to look for work to do. Nevertheless, ice cream helps.

This is called Carrot Cake, though as far as I could tell, there were no carrots in it, and as you can plainly see, it's not a cake. False advertising, sure, but tasty.

The Masjid Mosque was undergoing construction, but it's still an 
impressive sight over the rooftops.

The city contains an interesting mix of architecture side by side, and despite the large population, the number of cars is pretty reasonable. I think the 150% tax they have to pay to own a car has something to do with that. 

Just a fun little cafe in Little India

Street art

Fishy ice cream!

After exploring the remaining corners of the city and fortifying myself with ice cream, I double checked the weather report and headed back to the zoo for the night safari. Needless to say pretty much all the pictures I took there were crappy since there's a strict no-flash policy to maintain the atmosphere for the nocturnal animals. I did snap a few semi-decent ones. 

Cloud leopard getting ready to jump

This guy was my favorite. It's a giant flying squirrel and he was the 
fluffiest most adorable creature there. 

And this is Mr. Frog. I'm still not entirely sure if he was the exhibit or 
food for the exhibit, but he's cute

I arrived back at my hostel around midnight and kept my fingers crossed the entire night hoping that my ATM card comes soon as I'm eager to head out to Malaysia and explore a new place.

3 comments:

  1. You're right, red panda can compete in cuteness with regular panda! Cuteness overload! With fishy ice cream on top :)

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  2. Let me just same I AM DO JEALOUS. I am happy you are having a great time and ate an expensive panda bao.

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  3. Hehehe sexy coffeeeee - that ice cream is so freakin cool - why dont we have that in america? just make those syrofoam ice cream cones into better shapes and everyone will choose them over waffle cones! haha

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