Singapore Sling Part One

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We had a late start to our first day in Singapore. I didn’t mind because we have been here before and already had a good idea about what we wanted to do while we were here. Our mission today was to go to the Singapore Zoo. We started walking, not knowing really were we were going because we were outside the maps limit. We ended up walking for forty five minutes before we realised that we needed directions. We were going in the right direction but the map’s scale was out and we didn’t realise how far away things actually were. We ended up catching the bus to the Woodlands area, we thought we might be able to walk or catch a short bus from there. A really nice old lady started to talk to us because we looked so lost. She was a Catholic teacher and she started telling us were we should go and how to get there. In the end she told us to follow her and she would lead the way to the zoo. She ended up teaching us how to catch the train and buy the tickets. She couldn’t do enough for us. We left her with hugs for looking after us and hoped of the next station. A quick bus ride to the Zoo and we began our day.
The Singapore Zoo was great we had a lot of time to kill so we just took our time and strolled around. I think that it is wonderful that many places in the world have realised the importance of conservation and are trying to educate people of why it is important to protect what little natural habitats and animal species we have left. It was very muggy and the humidity was very thick and we frequently stoped to rest.
That night we went to the Night Safari. The night safari was great to see, all the animals come out to feed and although it was hard to see some of them the animals you could see they were very active. There was a Zoo train that you can take around instead of walking, it cost $11 each and we didn’t think it was worth it because you see more just standing there and waiting for the animals to pop out in front of you. We were half way through the Safari when we could hear a lion roaring in the distance. We both looked at each other in the dark and thought we have to go in that direction to see this lion roar. Even though it was still a long way you could almost feel the roar within you. We wound our way through the safari and headed towards the African animals. I knew we were getting close to the lions because the smells of large animals hung in the night air. We walked past the another train pickup point which had rails meandering their way backwards and forwards to take the hoards of people that must come through.

Dan had decided that we should take the train ride as our feet were hurting and you couldn’t see some of the park without hopping on so Dan concocted a plan to get us on the train without paying.

Dan:
The plan was that when asked for the tickets I would turn to Jacinta I would expect her to have them. She would then look at me with a startled look on her face and say “No I gave them to you!” I would say “No I gave them back to you with the other bits of paper”. She then would say “I thought it was rubbish and threw it in the bin!” To make this all really convincing we then started to have a marital argument right in front of the ticket lady. She stops us half way as we were about to really get stuck in to each other and said to step on the train. We both thanked her profusely and hoped on. Jacinta got on the train and slapped her hand into her forehead and said “I can’t believe we just did that!”. I laughed and had no doubt that we would get on the train with a well executed plan, the only thing that concerned me at the time was Jacinta’s poor acting skills and that’s was something we have to work on. Maybe I could try and get her to cry next time?

The train ride was hardly worth the effort of all that acting. We decided that we were tired so we headed for the bus and made our way back to the hotel.

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