Tom's zoo birthday

---

Geo: 1.29178, 103.841

Today my darling Tom turns 11. He is smart, gentle, funny and the best little cricketing mate that a mother could wish for! So, his birthday treat today was a trip to the Singapore Zoo, for him to ride the elephants!

After a pre-breakfast breakfast at the hotel, we got a maxi taxi limo to the zoo - awesome, said the kids! Then, straight to Breakfast with the Orangutans, where we had arranged a front row table for our boy! First the food - don't expect too much from beef-bacon or chicken-ham! But the entertainment was great - before the orangutans arrived, the lady announced that that were feeding and bathing the elephants just across the path -and Matthew charmed the staff into letting him feed the elephant, and Georgia and I got to pat them (Tom chose not to come to the elephants). Then the orang-utans arrived into the restaurant! They came so close, and stayed for as many photo opportunities as anyone wanted. Matthew discovered that he was more interested in holding the (non-venomous)corn snake around his neck than the orang-utans, but they had me transfixed. The breakfast experience was complete when the staff came with cake and candles for Tom!

Then on a wander around the zoo - so many amazing animals, so accessible. Some favourites were the gibbons - we thought the noise was a toddler out of control! - the tapir, the baby sloth, the lemur, the mouse deer, the tiny monkeys and the leopard cat. The elephant ride was amazing - you could feel the muscles in the back and legs of the huge animal as he plodded around a path with us perched so high on his back! We even survived a huge tropical thunderstorm, taking shelter in the snake house, before seeing the chimps, monkeys and primates....I loved the Fragile Forest enclosure, where the animals were free-range and so close to us - butterflies, mouse deer, mice, parrots, bats and sloths all close enough to touch!!

A huge day, and by 4.30pm, after 8 hours at the zoo, we were exhausted! Home for a swim, and a rest, before out to a Japanese restaurant in Robertson Walk for curry and ramen - yum! All in all, a wonderful birthday for Tom!

---

Comments

[Uncle Mark]

Which one is the Orangutan? :)