Monday 9 July 2007

Friends of the Zoo

When the kids were younger, we had the “Friends of the Zoo” pass which allowed us to make unlimited trips to the Singapore Zoo. It's a fascinating place for the kids. As you can imagine, we spent many weekends there.

A trip to our zoo is like a walk in a huge park. Long acclaimed for its Open Zoo concept, over 300 species of animals live in spacious and landscaped enclosures simulating that of their natural habitat. Our zoo has won many awards, from tourism to service awards, even The Happy Toilet Award which is a 5 Star award for cleanliness, functionality and creativity! Believe me, there are trees and plants growing in the toilets.

The exhibits change from time to time but the Jungle Breakfast is very popular with tourists who get to sit down and enjoy a 'leisurely' breakfast with an adorable orang utan. I don't see how that is possible.... But our own favourite exhibits are the polar bears, pygmy hippos and the beautiful white Bengal Tigers...though I suspect the real highlight of our trips were the ice-cream treats at the Ben & Jerry’s scoop shop!

The pygmy hippos are the cutest! This mummy had just given birth to a tiny baby.

The Fragile Forest is a walk-thru rainforest home to free ranging mousedeers, lemurs, tree kangaroos and butterflies amidst mighty trees, delicate ferns and stunning cascades. It’s an ecological and cultural showpiece highlighting the inter-relationships of animals, plants and human beings in rainforests. Watch out! A large iguana roams freely here.
You can come face to face with the fruit eating bats and other animals in the Fragile Forest.

I think zebras are one of the most good looking animals.
The herb and vegetable garden in the zoo is one of my favourite spots. This is what the sesame plant looks like.
Our zoo is famous for The Primate Kingdom which consists of moated islands which house the lion-tailed macaques, patas monkeys, brown capuchins, Celebes macaques, douc langurs, black spider monkeys and Golden-Lion Tamarins. Tall trees, long wild grasses, gingers, palms and bamboo are used to recreate a lush rainforest.


A pepper plant.
A cacao tree. Cocoa is made from the crushed seeds of the cacao tree, used in making chocolate.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, I just love it, Blur. That is the way all zoos SHOULD be. Where the animals are protected, and disturbed as little as possible.

Epimenides said...

It looks fantastic Ting!
(BTW -you can find trees and plants in greek public toilets, too, but alas, they aren't the award winning ones) ;)

Anonymous said...

Well, I've never seen an iguana take the stairs before.

Blur Ting said...

Yes Holly, this Zoo post is dedicated to you :-)

Epi - that makes that trip to Greece really necessary now, doesn't it?

David - yup, that's what makes them even scarier!! Good thing they're not that fast.

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