The Zoo is our Happy Place

When doing all my research for Singapore everything I looked said that the zoo was a must. I was excited about it because I am a zoo person and have trained my children to love the zoo as well. Really they just love going to the zoo. Who doesn't? Getting close to exotic animals is thrilling. It will always be a different experience when ever you go because the animals are always changing and doing different things.

You know when you walk into a zoo and the first exhibit is a free range monkey exhibit with the monkeys running around and you can walk up right next to them it's going to be cool. My favorite zoo I think we have ever been too. It is the world's best rain forest zoo. We saw a lot of animals we had never seen before. A lot of them native to Malaysia which is only a bus ride away. It's so cool! 

The first Friday we were here we made the long trek up to the zoo. You think it would be more accessible since it is such a destination stop, but it's not. We took a long train ride and then could either take two buses, walk four miles, or take a taxi. We took a taxi. We went ahead and got a membership to the Zoo and River Safari which is right next door to the zoo along with the Night Safari.

There are a ton of animal feedings through out the day. We made plans to go to the white tiger feeding because hello! White tiger feeding! When are you ever going to get to see that in your life ever? It was amazing. The tigers got into the water and were swimming around right in front of us. The enclosures here are fantastic. There are so many free range exhibits. You can get up close with all the animals. The enclosures also have several viewing points so you have lots of opportunity to spot the animals and get a good look at them in ways you never thought possible.

Since getting our membership we have been up to the zoo five times in three weeks (I wrote this post a while back so we have been since first writing this). Two trips to the zoo, two trips to the River Safari, and one trip to the Night Safari. We got a membership there as well because if you go more than once it pays for itself and it is worth going more than once. And I want to make our membership worth it so I have been trying to get up there every week. The kids love it a lot. Henry asks to go to the zoo just about every day. On our way up there we will talk about the animals we want to see.

Henry's favorite are the elephants, otters, monkeys, tigers, polar bear, crocodiles, etc. He is an animal lover. He gets up to an exhibit and says "where is it? I can't see it. Where is it Mommy?". I will point it out to him and he gets excited and will start laughing or saying "I see it!". He is very inquisitive and will ask what's it doing, why is it doing that, or laugh and say "it's so silly". And who knew there were Asian otters?

The orangutan are in a free range exhibit. We are walking underneath them right here. They are native to Borneo which is a short plane ride from Singapore. I really want to go see one in the wild. 

Bad picture of the cheetah, but I haven't seen one in such a long time so here ya go. Did you know that they can only run at high speeds for a minute because their body temperature will get to high and they will die? Learned that tid bit on National Geographic Wild channel. Nerd alert!

The first wildebeest my eyes have ever seen in rl!

Snarling lion! These exhibits put you right in the action!

You guys, I am so excited that the zoo has a tortoise statue!!!!!!! The tradition can continue in Singapore!

Cosette's favorite to are the Koalas. The first time we went she saw that they had them before we even got into the zoo and she would not let us stop and look at anything else until we saw the Koalas. She was shepherding us the the whole way there. It was pretty funny because the rest of us are looking at all the other animals and she is yelling at us to hurry up because we have to go see the Koalas. Our second trip there Henry had fallen asleep and we were headed out. I asked her if she wanted to see any other animals and she said she wanted to see the Koalas. Lucky for us that we went because a couple of them were awake and one was chowing down on some eucalyptus leaves. They sleep something like 14-18 hours a day, so seeing them awake is kind of a big deal, at least for us. 

While there we saw two giant lizards that looked like they should be a part of the zoo, but they are not. They were just roaming around the zoo like they owned the place. It was kind of freaky because these lizards are pretty large. this one was smaller than the first one we saw. I was kind of in shock when we saw the first one. I was like is it wild? Did it escape from the zoo? What do we do? We kept our distance. Later I found out that they were Monitor lizards, are native to Singapore. I hope see some more when we go again.  

There is a fantastic kids area with carousel, pony rides, and the coolest splash pad I have ever seen outside a water park. We go to the zoo just for that. The kids are obsessed and we spend at least an hour of our time there. We will even go there after and outing at the River Safari. It's awesome and necessary to cool down after walking around in the heat. The last time we went, after we got home I had to take a shower and change clothes because I was soaked from walking around in the heat and wet kids climbing all over me. It was a really fun outing

Here is a little clip of Henry going down one of the water slides. He did not go down by himself at first and when he started going down on his own he was so proud of himself. He would say "I did it!", as you will see.

Gift shop shenanigans. 

We love the zoo. We will take you there if you come visit. Just don't take any food around the free ranging monkeys. They have noses better than fox hounds and police dogs. Voice of experience here.