Singapore - Day2

Saturday (29th October) was the day that we were to go to the Zoo, River safari and Night safari ... We decided to start the day at 9 AM, had breakfast at the Delifrance that is at the Toa Payoh MRT, post which we proceeded to take the uh ...The uh... ummm... Ok, this is embarrassing .... I've forgotten how we got there .. I do know we took a bus after getting down from the train, which took us to the zoo, but I have no recollection of which line and which stations we changed at. Hmmm.

Anyhoo, we got to the zoo around 10am (that's when it opens). My cousin had booked passes for the 2 of us to all the 4 animal related attractions - it cost 125 SD for 2 people :) Reached the place and got a map at the turnstile - Boy! are there a lot of animals to see ... Super excited and super charged up (at least I was), we proceeded to walk along the route suggested by the map. Slowly along the way we realised that if we only followed the route marked in orange, we would miss half the animals. Hmm, traveling salesman problem was at hand to be solved ! :) :)

As soon as you enter the zoo you walk along a bridge of sorts where you see river animals below (alligators, turtles etc). We walked the entire place and saw every single enclosure. I was the self-appointed navigator and I DID NOT MISS A SINGLE TURN or make any of us walk even a foot extra in distance :) So proud of myself :) The zoo is maintained very well, every single enclosure has enough space to watch the animals and see what they are upto (and this space is apart from what is there for taking pics). The place is so so so so clean (I will not be able to get over this and will constantly repeat myself). There are shows throughout the day where they have small events with animals. We just about managed to catch one of the shows (albeit the ending) - Elephants of Asia.

Here are a few pics of the animals we saw! The zoo also had 2 pandas - hahaha they totally reminded me of Po. Happy big fat lazy adorable creatures !

After we got done with the zoo, which was around 2PM (which is 4 hours of continuous walking), we sat down at the food stalls outside, which is called Mandai Mart (rofl !!), and stuffed our faces with food.  They gave us our juices in nice mugs (with either Zoo pics or Safari pics) which are ours to keep !!! 

We then went to the River Safari (it's in the same enclosure). The thing that I loved about the River Safari is the fact that you do not sit in a boat and are ferried around the place. You have to walk through the route, and they have created sections of the route for all the famous rivers in the world. We saw the Nile, the Ganga, Amazon etc! The Amazon river had its own boat ride where we saw animals in their enclosures (open areas with a most separating them from the public). The Ganga had the dolphin and the Ghariyal. There was even a section where we got to touch fishes and star fishes !!! :)

The starfish I touched :)

There is this massive tank where several river creatures are kept - it's incredible !

After completing the river safari (which included tonnes of walking), it was almost 5:30PM. The Night Safari entry was for 7:15PM and by that time we were so tired that we HAD to take a break. We got some ice cream from Mandai Mart to cool our throats.Thankfully it did not rain the entire day and was just overcast (had heard about how it always rains in Singapore, but we got lucky :)) and joined the massive queue that had started forming to enter the night safari area. I was so tired by then (had not eaten due to the bad stomach that I had), I just sat down on the road while we were waiting.

We got to enter the enclosure at 7:15 sharp. We did not take any pics as flash photography was not allowed (sorry folks, no pics to share). Most of the animals were not in cages. As luck would have it, as we approached the lion enclosure we read on the sign board that their feeding time was at 8PM ! We hung around there for 10 minutes (until the feeders came along). There were 5 lionesses and one of them was pacing up and down (seemed as though she was super impatient for food). As the time for their dinner approached we heard a  lion roaring!! Even though we knew that there is no scope for anything to happen, the roar did send shivers down my spine - loud, fearsome, majestic it was, I tell you.
We got to see hyenas and the cheetahs being fed - very cool :) but nothing as awesome as the king of the jungle. 

We finally got done at 9PM and headed home. Already along the way back, I was dreading the next day given the amount we would have to walk at the bird park ('coz as per The Plan, we were to go to Jurong Bird Park the next day). Then a brain-wave struck us - THE PLAN WAS NOT FIXED !!! hahahaha, so we decided to do some sight seeing and shopping from another day, and move the bird park to Monday. Phew, knowing that the next day was going to be a little light on our feet, we returned happily.

Once we got back, my cousin tells me that he has a bath tub. A BATH TUB !! OMG - I started hyperventilating !! :D I decided that the next day we were going to buy bubble bath and I was going to spend at least 1 hour a day in it :) (I love bubble baths - which I am sure if evident by now).

Thus ended Day 2 and we were already exhausted beyond reasonable limits. My FitBit tracked 25k steps taken on Saturday alone!