First Stop...Singapore including Zoo

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Monday 10th to Wednesday 12th March 2008

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Well, after months of planning, we finally arrived at our first stop, Singapore, late Monday afternoon. Reagan was an angel during the 5+ hour flight, she was thoroughly entertained by having her own movie and games screen and the flight attendants were great with her.

We had a slight hiccup when we arrived at the Orchard Park Hotel only to find that we were not listed as having a reservation... obviously we were not the first ones because the receptionist said, are you sure youre not registered at the Ochard Parade? Um, yep. Duh. How blonde did I feel....

The hotel is quite nice, right on the corner of Tanglin Rd & Orchard Rd, with lots of shopping nearby, although many of the shops are in the Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Ralph Lauren etc league so no doubt we wont be setting foot in too many of them. The shopping here is unbeleivable though, great shops everywhere you look. It rained hard all day today so we skipped the zoo and went shopping down at Centrepoint which about a $5 cab ride from our hotel. We had a great afternoon although it was still stormy and thundering when we came out.

Yesterday we took the MRT and the bus to the Jurong Bird Park, which was so beautiful. I always thought birds were pretty boring but this totally blew me away, the birds were just gorgeous and they have done a great job with the landscaping, its very lush. One of the highlights was having our photo taken with a bunch of brilliantly coloured parrots with two of them standing on my hands. I also got to feed the cute little lorrikeets some sugar water. They were so tame they just flew over and sat on my shoulder, arms and chirped away as they ate. Reagan was a bit scared of them but she loved watching them. There were heaps of other gorgeous birds - bright beaked toucans, huge eagles, talking african greys, funny looking shoebills, beautiful pink flamingoes...they even had an enclosure with snow owls, and real snow. It really was worth the visit.

Tomorrow we are going to brave the storms which are forecast for the rest of the week (bloody weather) and head over to Sentosa Island (should make the cable car ride a bit more exciting) and to the zoo on Friday morning, where we have booked in to have breakfast with the orangutan - cannot wait for that bit! Anyway, we're up early tomorrow so will sign off for now.

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Photos

Yummo!
Reagan gave the plane food the thumbs up

Graceful Flamingos
The flamingoes were beautiful, very serene and graceful with their long necks and legs.

Majestic
These birds were so brialliantly coloured and absolutely my favorite. Quite big (about a foot and a half high) they ranged from vivid reds, blues, greens and yellows.

Jurassic Park Lookalike
This amazing look bird is a Shoebill, obviously because of its beak. To me it looked like it belonged in Jurassic Park, it had that prehistoric dodo kind of look about it. It wasnt at all frighted by us being so close, it just stood there and posed nicely for me.

Cheeky Larries
Visting the Lorri Lounge - sweetie little Lorrikeets who came and sat on my shoulders and arms and slurped from a bowl of sugar water. They were very freindly and fluttered around everyone quite happily.

Birds on Stage
The Bird Park offered photos with these birds sitting on you, somethign I could not turn down. We ended up having some taken with the smaller red and green ones sitting on my hands, Reagan holding the yellow one on a perch and the others standing right behind us.