Singapore Zoo & Night Safari

Normally, we wouldn't bother with a zoo, it's much better seeing animals in their natural environment, but this zoo is a little different, it's more like a safari park and they do so much work on protecting endangered species it seemed only right to give them a bit support. Christopher Sorrell, we know you love animals so here's lots for you to look at. You might be looking at the first picture thinking the camera is bust again! No this is a rare white Bengal tiger (not to be mistaken for an albino!) This one has white fur and piercing blue eyes, we know this because on the night safari we were lucky enough to be sitting right next to the glass at the side of the enclosure when they were getting fed. He picked up his half of chicken and brought it right over to the glass and sat and ate it in front of us, we were literally the thickness of the glass away from him - we just sat awestruck for 20 minutes looking at him.

Here are the elephants getting fed fruit from the kids. They do a little show of how the elephants are put to work in the forests, moving trees and logs etc.

This is the polar bear looking for fish. They do a 'token feed' at certain times through the day so the crowds can see the animals doing their stuff.

This was a little on the cruel side! They throw live fish in and people watch while the bear tracks them down and chows them down - usually head first!

We were 'lucky' enough to be standing just in the right place when he pinned the fish against the glass with his massive paw - the following picture was too gruesome for the blog!!

A rare white rhino and a pair of Giraffes 'necking on' - quite easy with necks that long!

A female lion awakening from a 20 hour nap for a 'token feed'. I've sometimes wondered if Elvis has some lion blood in her!

Pink flamingos filtering out their food from the pond.

This is a South American wolf, a rather 'namby pamby' looking wolf if you ask me! Much longer legs than the wolves I'm used to seeing. If you zoom in you'll see this one has just caught a rat and is busy chowing down -urghhhhh!

Look at the length of the arms on this 'minkey'.

One of my friends reckoned I (Keith) might get in to see the Orangutans, but with the length of my arms, they might not let me out - cheek! These have so may human traits it's unnerving to see them with each other. They reckon that our genes match 98% of theirs.

A giant tortoise (I know, there's nothing next to it to give it scale I hear you all say) , it's about 18 inches high and about 3 feet long.

Be grateful that I got a picture of this gibbon from the front, the 'reverse' picture is enough to put a couple off their chicken fried rice and noodle soup. You'd never eat a vindaloo again if you saw it!

This is a cheetah, the worlds fastest animal - well not quite, because if it was chasing me I would be 1 mile an hour faster!

This one is for my Father-in-law Ron Elves, he loves his little furry animals - especially the mere cat!

This was a little 'jungle show' before the night safari. The night safari is one of the best things we've done, because through the day most animals are resting, but when you go around on a night all the animals are out fighting, foraging and feeding. Unfortunately there aren't any pictures - it was dark and you're not allowed to use a flash!!

Two sea otters, sitting together enjoying their daily snack!

Back to two very odd looking animals. This is Clarke Quay on the river, we were on the hunt for food!

And we found some.... but not here. The people in the shop seem confused as to why there aren't long lines of hungry people waiting in line for some 'Pig's Organ Soup'. I did go over to look, there wasn't any organs I could recognise. My brother would love it though - anything with offal!

The is the last image of Singapore - This is a typical busy street in Singapore, the ultra clean, 24 hour, mega shopping , 'nothing closing' kinda city. Tomorrow we're off to Kuala Lumpur - but that's for another blog. (We've had only few days in KL now and are off for pastures new. These 'new pastures' are a bit far flung so internet access may be difficult so.. there may not be much blogging done for a while!)

Two cups of tea for sister Ginny, who correctly identified Singapore as the name of the City and the Country. Another cup of tea for answering the question of after whom was the Cameron Highlands named after - quite amazing since we hadn't actually asked the question yet!! CS.