This entry was posted on 2/18/2008 8:06 PM and is filed under Singapore.
Singapore is an interesting country. It is the smallest country in Southeast Asia with just 4,680,000 people. It's about the size of one third of the whole metropolis of Los Angeles and it is the 17th wealthiest country in the world. It feels very spacious, different from the crowds we experienced in Hong Kong. It's extremely safe, although we did see a sign that said "Low Crime Does Not Mean No Crime". They use the Death Penalty quite often, so it seems be effective as a deterrent.
Although English is the official language, it's pretty difficult to understand most people, even if they were born here. It seems to be kind of a melting pot of various cultures or a "salad bowl" as we once heard it described. Other main languages spoken are Malay, Mandarin and Tamil.
It's not a real vacation destination point, but more of a comfortable transit station to acclimate to jet lag or to shop, if that is what you like to do. There is a great variety of interesting food to eat and they do drive on that other side of the road like the Australians. And when it's windy at night we watched them fly these fantastic neon lit kites and do tricks and soar through the sky all colorful and bright. And during the day it's very HOT and humid too.
2) Here's a beautiful sculpture that caught our eye...
And that leads us into our 3rd day here in Singapore. We had time for one big afternoon adventure, so we headed by taxi to Jurong Park, about 25 minutes drive from our hotel.
It's a 22 hectare (54 acre) Bird Park. And you know how the Pods love birds. This was truly a fantastic outing. The best part was feeding the lories in the Lory Loft. They have the world's largest lory aviary filled with over 1,000 different brilliantly colored lories. It was massive with 360 degree views and catwalks and suspension bridges over to different feeding areas. Lories come from Australia, Indonesia and New Guinea.
We climbed to a shady feeding area and held out our cups of nectars and invited the birds to feast. For $2 Singapore you could buy a little cup of nectar and some gorgeous lories took us up on our offer. They were very friendly and never bit or nipped.
This guy was a "lorie impersonator" – really some kind of parrot...
We also saw some very exotic kinds of birds that we hadn't seen before.
Here are some Victoria Crown Headed Pigeons from Northern New Guinea...very friendly and peaceful birds with glorious crowns and amazing red eyes...
These scarlet Ibis were magnificently imbued with this deep orange color...
These beautiful Turacos are fruit eating birds from Africa that jump from tree to tree instead of flying...
The 12-Wired Bird of Paradise from New Guinea was a most spectacular bird. They were in full mating season so the males were doing their song and dance trying to woo the females into mating with them. This park received an award for being the first ones to successfully mate this particular species of bird while in captivity.
Their "World of Darkness" exhibit of the owls was really stunning. They had a large variety of owls that we had never seen before all very wide awake sitting motionless in large trees because of their reverse lighting that converts day into night. We saw Snowy Owls (left), Barn Owls and Fish Owls (right), all very eerie and magnificent.
We went to a Birdie Buddie show and look who volunteered to hold the hoop for this magnificent scarlet macaw to fly through. Watch this movie and find out...
Watch this little parrot sing "Happy Birthday" in her great little voice...
They even had Peach Faced Lovebirds, a cousin of our bird Gracie.
Watch this adorable movie of our Gracie taking a bath/shower. OK,
it has nothing to do with Singapore, but we just got around to
uploading it and you shouldn't miss it. (And Gracie would probably like to be included in this section on fabulous birds.)
They also have the largest indoor aviary in the world along with the highest (100ft tall) man-made waterfall in the world. We met these cool Buddhist monks from Sri Lanka who are here studying for 3 months. They gave us an orange as an offering. So kind...
On our cab ride home we asked the driver to make a detour through Orchard Rd., the world famous HUGE shopping area of Singapore. There are 37 MALLS in this very small area and they are under construction for several more. All the major shopping names can be found here. Each blue dot on the map is a GIANT mall. We were content to see it as we passed by and leave it for the die-hard shoppers.
2/19/2008 11:20 PM
Darcey wrote:
Yeah - so nice to be traveling with you again. Beautiful pics! Rainy here and fluish but writing going well. Manuscript will certainly be ready when you get back or can be sent if you want it while you travel. Fair winds!! D Reply to this
2/20/2008 11:12 PMJane Lurie wrote:
OK we're so happy to be on the road again Pod-style. Love the birds..especially Gracie's bath, where you followed my main shooting philosophy.."let the world be your tripod" Oodles of Oaklie Love to You, Jane Reply to this
but writing going well. Manuscript will certainly be ready when you get back or can be sent if you want it while you travel. Fair winds!! D