I enjoyed our tour guide this morning, as well as our friendly Uber driver this evening. Singapore is made up of about 74% Chinese, 13% Malay and 9% Indian, but those are ethnicities. The people here are Singaporean. They are proud of their "Little Red Dot" country and its diversity. They are proud to call this place home while being kind and welcoming to visitors.
Our guide ushered us through narrow streets with stores full of gold jewelry, beautiful fragrant flower garlands, unique vegetables, fresh fish, and much more. We visited the busy temple full of worshippers meditating, offering gifts and praising gods in a vibrant, golden room that also awakened many senses.
After our tour, we had our first, and successful, trip on the MRT, mass rail transit system. It was clean, easy to use and signs were clearly posted. We were headed toward our lunch spot, a place a friend had seen on a Mental Floss post months ago, that we knew had to be in our itinerary. The restaurant was far away from the touristy part of town, and I must admit that I was a bit anxious as we approached, considering the other shops around, but as soon as we opened the door to Platform 1094 and saw people dressed in their Hogwarts robes and Gryffindor ties, we knew we were in the right spot. The cafe did a spectacular job of not breaking any sort of copyright rules as nothing explicitly said Harry Potter, but the place was magical. A hat rack in the corner was loaded with a variety of clothing articles one could borrow while eating. An open cabinet had a variety of wands, glasses, stuffed owls and small figurines you could use during your stay. And the menu had lots of concoctions, including (although named something different) a Goblet of Fire. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with our fellow fans. The food was great, but the atmosphere the most fun of all!
We headed to the Botanical Gardens next, a free haven in the city with miles of neatly kept trails, interesting plants, a sky walk amongst the trees, and signs posted that said "Do Not Feed the Monkeys." (We were disappointed that we did not see any monkeys.) I have a great love and appreciation for my own Botanical Gardens in Birmingham, and was thankful for the opportunity to see another, beautiful one full of different things, but nevertheless being appreciated by the school groups and locals napping on the green grass.
As a modern city/country (our guide told us this morning that they consider anything that is 5 years old to be old and anything that is ten to be in need of replacement), most of the things on Trip Advisor's top ten list are things like the Sky Gardens, Universal Studios and the zoo. So, we decided to head to the three-part zoo where we took part in two of the sections.
First, we wandered through the river section where mighty, life giving rivers like the Nile, the Amazon, the Mekong (that I'll see in a couple weeks) and even the Mississippi were on display. Creatures from each of these rivers were there to show off, with a very special one, the panda being our particular favorite. (And yes, I realize the panda is not a fish or reptile.)
This section of the zoo was really large and included a ride on the boat out into the reservoir.
Next, we headed to the Night Safari, with about a gazillion other people who wanted to see nocturnal animals at their peak. We enjoyed a show where a trained otter helped to recycle cans, a white raccoon snuck across the stage and a serval acted like most cats and chose to sit rather than jump as he was supposed to do. We took a tram ride through the park where nocturnal animals greeted us, some like varieties of deer were wandering freely in different enclosures, but the hyenas and lions were well distanced with moats in between. We wandered around the zoo a bit more and then decided that our feet were tired and our bodies had had enough of the humidity for the day.
I do believe, however, that we used our time wisely in Singapore!
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