The last few days i’ve been in Singapore. I’m currently in Little India, which is a few train stops from the CBD. You can’t call it the train (as I’ve found out and confused the locals), it’s really an MRT – Mass Rapid Transit.
Yesterday, I decided to go to the Singapore Zoo. It was pretty cool. I spent about half day there walking around checking out the animals and plant life. My favourite exhibits were the White Tiger (1 in 10,000 tigers is a white tiger), Giraffe, jaguar, cheetah, crocodiles. I guess I like those predator type animals (except the giraffe of course). It was pretty impressive. Singapore Zoo is an open zoo – its not completely open, there’s a pathway like a normal zoo and a there are cages. But they are open cages (no roofs), except for a few. For example there’s a big moat and island for the chimpanzees. On the island, there are a bunch of wooden logs and vines connected together.
When I was walking around on the footpath, I randomly came across a few fairly big sized birds (like turkeys), a sloth hanging on a tree, some squirrels. Of course, the biggest animals they cage completely like the jaguar. Its a very powerful animal that can leap. I learnt a lot about the animals, how they live, how man kind has been ruining their habitats and hunting them to extinction.
It was quite handy that I met someone in the hostel that had been to the zoo they day before, and told me how to get there via train and bus. He also told me to bring food/water because the zoo is quite big and expensive.
After the zoo, I decided to go to Orchard Rd as it was on the way there. I had a Laksa at Ion Food Hall – it was awesome! I was hot and sweaty but I had to have one. Then I thought I would talk down Orchard Rd a bit. 45 mins later, I realised that Orchard Rd is massive! It’s quite an impressive street. Its the glitz and glamour (and hence the expensive end) of Singapore. They’ve got all the big brands from Hermes, LV, heaps of other stores. The store fronts near the MRT look huge!
Later that night, I met up with Fozz, a high school friend. He’s now working in SG on an internship. We went to a hawker street stall and just chilled out.
Singapore is hot and humid, but I actually found it better than Thailand / Malaysia. Or maybe its because i’m more used to the heat now having been in Asia for a few weeks!
Other adventures in Singapore include getting lost in Little India on my first night. All the streets look the same, and I had no map. Plus the locals try to help you out, but I think they have no idea either. I must say, Little India is not little. The place is huge. I’ve never seen so many Indian people before. I heard Sunday is when they all come out. There is a lot of Indian people in Singapore. I read that a lot of them do the manual labour jobs that the Singapore people won’t do. That’s also why there are a lot of mainland chinese here.
There is definently a lot of Mandarin being spoken here, so I’ve had to brush up my skills. Thankfully, I’ve been learning for the past few months and I like to try it out from time to time (except when it involves financial/bargaining conversations haha). Otherwise, everyone here speaks English / Singlish la!
Today I’m going to head to Changi Musuem and then probably meetup with Sheena at Clarke Quay.
I’m out like Little India,
Matt
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