Jurong Bird Park and Night Safari [Singapore 2018]

The following day (if you haven’t caught on yet, basically every day after the first couple days when we needed to meet up with people, we were out doing touristy things, often with some assortment of relatives), we had another doubleheader, this time accompanied by my aunt and uncle, to the Jurong Bird Park and the Night Safari. By the time we got to the bird park, it was basically lunchtime, but we’d had a large breakfast a couple hours before, so who needs to eat normal amounts of food at regular mealtimes? The bird park is designed mostly as a big loop with the exhibits/birds accessible from this loop. We started on one side of the loop where we saw penguins, flamingos (easily recognizable as the pink birds, but turns out there are six different species of flamingos), pelicans (eight species), swans (hiding or escaped, because there were about two swans in the pond), and parrots.

Variations on flamingos, and pelicans at feeding time

At the top of the loop is an enclosed area with a bunch of small colorful tropical-like birds. After visiting these birds (and the highest manmade waterfall in Singapore), we returned to the pelicans to see them being fed. At feeding time, the pelicans all gather at a tank with a clear side. Staff members tell the audience facts about the pelicans and toss fish to the pelicans so that the birds either catch the fish in their beaks or have to dive. If they dive deep enough, the clear side of the tank lets the audience see how the pelicans’ throat pouches stretch. It’s kind of cool to watch.

Singapore's highest manmade waterfall

Then the other side of the park has large birds, birds of prey, lories, birds of paradise, and toucans/hornbills. The large birds had open enclosures like the flamingos, pelicans, and swans, but a lot of the other birds were in large cages with dense foliage that made it hard to find them. We managed to see a couple of the toucans, and a lot of branches and leaves. On our way back to the entrance, we happened to be at the amphitheater as a show was starting. This show featured some of the smaller parrot-like birds. They had them fly through hoops, there was one that spoke, and a couple of them competed to get balls into a log. After the show, we went out for either a very late lunch or an early dinner before going to the Night Safari.

The Jurong Bird Park’s name is self-explanatory, but the Night Safari less so. The Night Safari is a nocturnal zoo with an animal show, tram tour, and walking paths. Because the animals featured are nocturnal, the Night Safari is only open at night. When we got there, we first watched the show, which included some slightly uncooperative owls, a giant snake, and recycling otters. We next went on the tram tour, which circles the park while a staff member gives commentary about the animals you’re passing. The animals range from larger species like elephants, deer, hippos, lions, tigers, and bears, down to porcupines, owls, and the slow loris. After the tram, we walked a bit to get a closer look at some of the animals and to see some that weren’t visible from the tram. Because it’s night, it can be hard to find the animals at all, but enough of the animals were visible to make it worth going. It’s the kind of attraction that I feel like would be a lawsuit waiting to happen in certain places (i.e. America – it’s dark, people walk around unsupervised, some animals aren’t protected by moats/ballistic glass/electric fences), but it’s safe as long as you don’t do anything stupid, and it’s a unique experience.

Lions at the night safari

Sentosa – Trick Eye Museum and S.E.A. Aquarium [Singapore 2018]

Singapore, 277 square miles in area (less than a quarter the size of Rhode Island), is already a very small island. Just off its southern coast is an even smaller island, Sentosa (1.82 square miles), a resort island that is now home to attractions including beaches, an adventure park, various museums, and Universal Studios Singapore. Since 2011, you can walk to Sentosa via a ~quarter-mile boardwalk, which is what we opted to do. Out of all the potential attractions, there were a couple that we wanted to see on this trip to Sentosa – the Trick Eye Museum and the S.E.A. Aquarium.

View of Sentosa from the Southern Ridges

We first visited the Trick Eye Museum. Unlike my usual fare of taxidermy, rocks, and vehicles, the Trick Eye Museum contains scenes painted so that you look like you’re in them if you stand in the right place. Some of the scenes have things for you to sit or lie on and some of them require you to take the picture one way, then rotate it afterwards to get the full effect. For example, the photo below has you sit on the bench, then turn it upside down so it looks like you’re hanging from the rafters while being threatened by a giant snake. Other scenes include hanging off a cliff, climbing bamboo, skydiving, being a mermaid, levitating on a chair, horse racing, and being eaten by a friendly fanged fish. The Trick Eye Museum doesn’t have as much repeat visitability as a more traditional museum, but it’s fun, and worth a visit if you’ve never done anything like it before.

Giant snake attack scene

After lunch, we went to the aquarium. However, the bundled tickets we bought to save money (Sentosa FUN Pass) forced us to get to the aquarium through the Maritime Experiential Museum, because otherwise no one would choose to go to the Maritime Experiential Museum. I’m on to you, Sentosa FUN Pass. It’s not a terrible museum; they go through the history of trade between Europe and Asia, a knot-tying station, model boats, and exhibits of some of the major ports and products traded, but compared to Universal Studios and beaches, it sounds like watching grass get cut, which is only a couple steps up from watching grass grow.

The Maritime Experiential Museum connects to the aquarium at the shark tank, and we arrived in time to see the sharks being fed, which was cool. The rest of the aquarium contains the usual mélange of tropical fish, jellyfish, coral, seaweed, that tunnel tank that you can walk through and have fish swimming overhead, schooling fish, small fish, big fish, one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. They also have an absolutely giant open ocean tank that takes up an entire room and has an auditorium-sized viewing area. In general, aquariums tend to be expensive compared to other museums and zoos, but if you can find a special deal or bundle the tickets with other attractions, it’s worth it. Timing for the day: about an hour and a half for the Trick Eye Museum, forty-five minutes to an hour for the Maritime Experiential Museum, and close to two hours for the aquarium. So nothing huge like the Field Museum, but more substantial than a state park visitor’s center.

Clockwise from top left: Shark feeding, fish tank, fish tunnel, jellyfish

Open ocean tank

Gardens by the Bay [Singapore 2018]

Next up on the itinerary was an attraction that didn’t exist the last time I was in Singapore. Gardens by the Bay opened in 2012 and consists of outdoor gardens, two conservatories (the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest), and a grove of giant metal trees (Supertrees). We began by taking the MRT (Mass Rapid Transport, Singapore’s rail system, featuring much less rattling, shaking, squealing, and rats than the New York subway) to Bayfront Station. The Bayfront station serves Marina Bay Sands, the shopping center/casino/hotel that looks like it has a spaceship on top of it. Marina Bay Sands was in Crazy Rich Asians and is otherwise famous for the infinity pool on the roof. An MRT station at Gardens by the Bay is planned for 2021, but for now Bayfront is the closest option, so we made our way there and walked the rest of the way to the gardens.

Overview of the Flower Dome and Christmas decorations

The outdoor gardens are free, but the conservatories, where we were headed, are ticketed. We passed through a few of the outdoor gardens on our way to the conservatories, and started with the Flower Dome. Unlike greenhouses that keep plants from freezing in temperate climates, both conservatories keep the plants inside them cool. The Flower Dome contains hundreds of plants, flowers, trees, etc., from non-tropical climates. To attract repeat visitors, they also decorate for different holidays and have a large central area that houses changing displays. When we were there, it was Disney Tsum Tsum themed for Christmas. Since they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Singapore, I was subjected to had the privilege of listening to Christmas song remixes/covers the entire time I was there.

Plants

Again, with my vast knowledge of plants, I can say that we saw a lot of them. I know there were olive trees, some orchids, poinsettias and some sort of evergreen brought in for Christmas, and a bunch of cacti. The Tsum Tsums were a fun addition, and I could actually recognize and name them, unlike, say, 99% of the plants I saw.

Cacti

After enjoying the Flower Dome, we moved on to the Cloud Forest. This conservatory’s main attraction is a 115-foot manmade waterfall in a 138-foot also-manmade structure that you can ascend via elevator and descend via a walkway. They try to add educational facts about the tropical mountain climate, cloud forests, environmentalism, and such, but most people are there for the waterfall and the views of Marina Bay.

Cloud Forest waterfall

In total, we took over two and a half hours to see both domes, about an hour and forty-five minutes for the Flower Dome and an hour for the Cloud Forest. By that time, it was too late to do the Skyway walk between the Supertrees, but we decided to stay for the Garden Rhapsody, a fifteen-minute light and music show at the Supertree Grove. If you’ve been wondering what a Supertree is, wonder no longer. The Supertrees are giant metal tree-like structures that are part art installation, part environmental promotion, and part utilitarian. They generate their own power for the light show through solar panals as well as function as giant chimneys for the conservatories’ exhaust and cooling systems. On the night that we were there, the music show was Oldies themed, with songs from the 60s and 70s(?). Overall, Gardens by the Bay feels well-executed. They have a variety of plants in a number of different garden settings, and they manage to make the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest two completely different experiences instead of plants in two different glass domes.

Lighted Supertree

Southern Ridges [Singapore 2018]

If there’s anything that can almost be considered hiking in Singapore, this might be it. The Southern Ridges is a trail along the – get ready for this – south ridge of Singapore that connects Mount Faber Park to Kent Ridge Park. In between are the Henderson Waves bridge, Telok Blangah Hill Park, Alexandra Arch, and HortPark. After spending the morning at the Botanic Garden with my aunt and cousin’s kids, my mother and I met up with my father at Vivo City for lunch (duck), then started our trek along the Southern Ridges at the Marang Trail at the Mount Faber end and made it to HortPark before going to visit my grandmother and convening with another aunt for dinner. Tired yet? This was day 4 and I had also already seen both grandmothers, met a niece and nephew for the first time, gone to church, met up with family friends for lunch, and survived enjoyed a family reunion with almost all the grandmothers/aunts/uncles/cousins/nephews on my father’s side.

Back to the Southern Ridges. If you didn’t know, Singapore is located one degree north of the equator. It is hot. And humid. Which means that many people prefer the air-conditioned confines of the indoors. I prefer anything that involves a bit of dirt and sweat. The first part of our journey, the Marang Trail, is partially wooded and takes you up to Mount Faber, a whole 106 m high. At the top of Mount Faber, there’s a restaurant/gift shop, you can take the cable car to Sentosa, and you get some nice views of the Singapore architecture.

View from Mount Faber

A walk across Mount Faber Park leads you to the next attraction along the Southern Ridges, the Henderson Waves bridge. The bridge spans Henderson Road and looks wavy, hence the Henderson Waves. The bridge itself (sadly) doesn’t go up and down, but the sides are waves. See below.

Henderson Waves bridge

On the other side of the bridge are the Hilltop and Forest Walks through Telok Blangah Hill Park. According to Wikipedia, Telok Blangah Hill is the original name of Mount Faber, and is Malay for “cooking pot bay,” because the nearby harbor was a – prepare yourselves – bay that was shaped like a cooking pot. The Forest Walk is cool because it’s elevated so you get to walk ~20 feet above the ground through the treetops.

Forest Walk

The Forest Walk leads to Alexandra Arch, a less cool bridge than the Henderson Waves, and HortPark. HortPark is a kind of horticultural center where people can go to buy gardening supplies and see a bunch of themed gardens. And with that, we made our way to my grandmother and on to dinner. Stay tuned for the next multiple-attraction day. Spoiler alert: most days were multiple-attraction days.

Botanic Garden [Singapore 2018]

An early excursion was to the Singapore Botanic Garden, the first and only tropical garden to be named a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and also home to the National Orchid Garden. So yes, this post is partially an excuse to show off orchid pictures. I hauled my nice camera across the ocean as my personal item on the plane, and I don’t regret it at all.

At 202 acres, the Botanic Garden is larger than both Nichols Arboretum at the University of Michigan (123 acres), and the Newman Arboretum (150 acres) at Cornell. Similarly to both arboretums, the Botanic Garden contains a variety of different areas, including several lakes (one with a stage for performances in the middle of it), a rainforest, Ginger Garden, Sundial Garden, Children’s Garden, and the Orchid Garden. It’s large (and hot) enough that most areas aren’t crowded; the highest concentration of people can be found at the Orchid Garden.

Swan Lake

When we visited, we started out by Swan Lake, a body of water featuring bird statues, and continued across the lawn to see some big trees. At that point, my cousin’s kids wanted to go play, so my mother and I split off from my aunt and the aforementioned children to go see the Ginger Garden. The Ginger Garden contains over 250 species of ginger. As someone who can tell the difference between a rose and a dandelion, I can say with confidence that the Ginger Garden contained many plants.

Trees, plant, plant, and plant

We reconvened with my aunt/niece/nephew outside the Orchid Garden. To allow us to spend more than 0.1 seconds looking at each orchid, we arranged to meet up with them again after going through the Orchid Garden. Even if you don’t fully comprehend the horticulture required to breed/grow/cultivate orchids, the sheer scale of this garden is impressive. There are thousands of orchids from dozens of different varietals/hybrids in all sorts of shades of red, orange, yellow, pink, and purple. Kind of like how the peony garden at the University of Michigan arboretum blooming every June is a Big Deal, the orchid garden is a Big Deal, except year round.

Orchids