Singapore Trip Part IV

Wednesday, 30th November

I had arranged to meet Takashi for lunch. As I was not that familiar with Orchard Road yet, we agreed to meet at Takashimaya.

Interestingly, Takashi is Malaysian and he moved to Singapore to work only in August this year. I have never met him before, so I am sure you can imagine the peculiarity of two Malaysians meeting for the very first time in Singapore.

He brought me to Lucky Plaza. He had chicken rice and I had wan tan mee.

As he had to go to Bugis for work later, we took a stroll along Orchard Road after lunch. He brought me to The Heeran, where apparently a lot of the employees there are our brothers.

Not surprisingly, there is a New Urban Male store there too. Although the shirts there are nice and of good material, the prices aren’t friendly to the pocket. A long sleeve shirt costs about SGD100.

At half past one, S came to join us. He has such envious work days – only four days in a week.

P and I had to go home as I wasn’t feeling so well. I was feeling nauseas and my stomach was aching. Hence, we took a cab home.

After resting for an hour, I was feeling better and we proceeded with original plan of going to the Night Safari. There was a third person with us – P’s niece. She hasn’t been there before and she likes animal a lot, so we brought her along as well.

Of all the tourist attractions in Singapore, I feel that the Night Safari is not to be missed. The décor and setting was excellent, ala Survivor with a lot torches and palm trees.

The first thing that we did was to go for the Animal Show. Nothing spectacular, just a Mat Salleh (Caucasian) making jokes and exaggerated drama to make the audience laugh.

After that, we took the tram and were shown the various animals that they have. Most of them are in encircled in low wooden fencing with a lot of space to roam. In addition, it’s not just one or two animals in a space the size of a half a football field, but there are usually half a dozen to a dozen.

What made the whole thing interesting was that the animals are active. I have not been to the National Zoo in Kuala Lumpur since I was in Standard Six, but I remembered that the animals were few in one enclosure (the most was three) and they were just lazing around.

Fine, one might argue that the animals at the Night Safari might be nocturnal, which is why they are active and prowling about. Still, I believe leopards and deers are not really nocturnal, are they? Tigers and lions definitely do not always hunt at night.

But all those were not lying almost motionless, with the only signs of them being alive their flicking tails. They were actually roaming in their open spaces.

Twenty minutes into the tram ride, we had to get down and explore the treks. They had the Leopard Trail and etc. There was even a cage with bats flying about, in which one can enter. A sign clearly says “Those with a fear of bats are not encouraged to enter”.

In the enclosure, bats were flying from one tree to another to eat the fruits. They are fruit bats and not blood-sucking ones. One flew above my head and instinctively I ducked, even though, logically, they wouldn’t hit me. This is because bats have very good ultrasonic ears to avoid hitting into objects, even though they are blind.

After that, we took the tram back to the main entrance after traversing the Himalayan mountains, the African savanna, the jungles of South America, etc.

The next morning, which was my last day in Singapore, P and I went to Queensway. I had actually wanted to get an amphibious shoe but then thought the better of it. I mean, how often would I be wearing them anyway?

As such, I decided to get something else instead. A pair of Adidas shoes for casual wear. A nice black pair, made of leather, with three white stripes on the sides. Really comfy too.

Took the 4 p.m. bus and surprisingly, I arrived back in PJ at 8.30 p.m. And no, the bus wasn’t speeding.