Over the past year I've been to many indoor and outdoor (especially) places that people are either too lazy to venture to, or haven't got the time to visit. Sometimes I really wonder why Singaporeans complain that there isn't anything to do in Singapore when there's plenty to discover! I've been to the Singapore Zoological Gardens, the Tree Top Walk at Macritchie, the National Library, East Coast Park...
... Singapore Botanic Gardens, the history room of The Cathay, the Airport in the dead of the night and Sentosa (which I've visited so many times, and am still in shock when anyone informs me that they haven't been there for a year or five). Yes. I'm constantly on the go and looking for new adventures on this tiny island, just to prove that you don't have to go overseas to do something exciting, or try something new.
Isn't it boring to merely laze around at home or visit mall after mall, or watch movie after movie during the weekends ?
And so on Saturday night I added another location to my list. It's been around for 10 years already and I've never been there in my life! I'm ashamed to say that I'm Singaporean, and you should be too if you haven't visited the place which won the Restroom Association (Singapore)'s Happy Toilet Award 2004!
I'm not kidding.
Amongst its various accolades, the night spot has also won the Singapore Tourism Awards' Leisure Attraction of the Year 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2003 and 2004.
I'm milking the suspense for all it's worth, and I love experiencing something new because blogging about it makes the 28 bucks I spend even more worth it as I get to share/spend time writing about what I see! Writing's a leisure for me too.
Anyway, Ryan and I were greeted by the flames followed by the very famous logo of two eyes peering out from the dark. The Singapore Night Safari was out to impressed the very moment we set foot in it. From the seemingly random ticket booths to the very woody, outdoor furnishings, no stone was left unturned to give the visitor the feeling that they were about to be awed by the creatures of the night.
We took a couple of photos at the entrance. A couple of Japanese girls helped us to take a photo, but it didn't turn out good at all, as cute as they were while excitedly squealing "1,2,3!" before violently pressing the button on the camera. It's an extra 8 dollars for the tram ride, which lasted about 50 minutes but more on that later. The queue for the tram was repulsively long. We were shocked that so many people visited the night safari, and even more when the queue stretched so far that we couldn't see the end! We decided to make the most of our time and instead of waiting, we started on the various trails that took us to many animals.
And this is what you usually see. The one big difference between the Night Safari and the Zoo is that the Night Safari, being the newer attraction, puts the animals right where you can see them - if you're able to spot them! There aren't too many places for the animals to hide, and even if there were, you'd be able to see them. However the low lighting makes me appreciate how the animals' camouflage works for them. Ooh, and my shitty camera doesn't have ISO at all, so I haven't got that many photos to share. 9/10 of them turned out completely black. Even when I was only a glass wall away from the tiger.
Ryan was much better than I was at spotting them. Without him, I don't think I'd have seen anything much on the trail! Haha! Despite being a tad tired as I went there from work, I was in awe of the animals that were in the exhibits - how they were so energetic despite it being late at night and lacking in light. The otters were tremendously entertaining too - they were one of the few who weren't lazing around and buzzing with activity.
If you don't see the animals in the photos, you might want to turn up the brightness of your screen.
I was within touching distance of this bat, and two others while they hung upside down, oblivious to the humans that were gasping in amazement at being so close to such an animal! I heard one foreigner exclaim that he'd never thought that he'd come face to face with a bat and not have any barrier in between them. The success of its open zoo design is something to be proud of.
The next two things that we experienced were probably the highlights of the entire trip but there were limited opportunities for photography due to the lack of light and the animals not being particularly fond of being photographed with the flash.
The Creatures of the Night show played to a full house thrice that night, and we queued for half an hour just to get seats for the last one. The show presenters were excellent entertainers, getting the audience to respond to them (which was really tough when half of the crowd consisted of Singaporeans, who aren't the warmest people, aside from the kids) and left me in awe of their stage presence. We got to witness the eating habits of various animals and my favourite one has got to be the civet. I have no idea why this animal is lesser-known compared to the others because it's just as cute and fun-loving as say, cats. The animal was crawling around its keeper (literally from shoulder to his chest to his back, round and round and round) at 120km/h, hardly bothered about the 300-or-so strong crowd who was waiting for it to sniff the Korean girl's hands to find out in where the grape was placed!
Another highly entertaining moment was when we waited, holding our breaths for 3 minutes just for the "cat" (can't remember the animal's name!) to make its 2 metre leap upwards to get a piece of meat! It circled below it for sometimes, lost interest, walked away, got coaxed by the trainer, circled the meat again and just when we all thought it was going to make a jump, it went off again. The cycle repeated itself for quite sometime, but everyone in the audience was holding on to the hope that it would show us something amazing, and everyone clapped appreciatively when we got to witness the 2 metre jump!
After the show we went for the tram ride. It's kind of heart-wrenching to spend an entire 8 bucks on it, but my mentality changed as I got to see the animals in their natural habitat. There were 8 themes and each explored various settings, such as the Himalayan Foothills, Equatorial Africa and Nepalese River Valley. The docile animals were set free to roam, and even get in the way of the tram! The other not-so-friendly animals were safely out-of-reach but still within viewing distance. As for the tapir, it preferred to be heard and not seen, squealing loudly into the soundless night as we passed by. The sight of the night was probably the Bull Elephant Chawang standing alone, munching on grass. The lighting made it look as if he was on a pedestal, with the moon behind him. The guide was fantastic, lending enthusiasm and insights to the animals as we went along. Travelling through the different terrains spiced up the entire ride - the sounds of rolling logs, cracking of suspended bridge and splashing of "river" water are still fresh in my mind.
Not only had I enjoyed myself a lot, I felt that I had also learned more about the animals.
It's truly an experience not to be missed.
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