Great beds at the Meritus Mandarin, where we're booked. We got the room with the king size bed, but guess who occupied most of it the first night (hint: their combined age is 6)? In the morning I'm beginning to think it was, after all, a good idea to lug along that airbed Malou insisted on bringing and that Yaya Dora slept fitfully on.
Anyway, after breakfast we take the MTR and a bus to Jurong Bird Park (or Juwong Bihd Pahk, as Baz says). The two boys have taken the subway in New York and DC, but we realize it's their first time on a bus, so we take pictures:
Now, I'm not a much of bird fan, but this place is impressive. They've got different habitats for different species of birds, and all in all a pretty comprehensive collection of fine feathered friends. I'm all for heading straight to the Birds of Prey habitat (probably a bird park's equivalent of a zoo's reptilarium), but then a sign catches our collective eye: it's got a black and white bird on it ... waddling ... it's PENGUINO! The boys can't resist the penguin exhibit and that's our first stop.
They've got emperor penguins, regular penguins, macaroni penguins, penguins with what looks like hair (like the Robin Williams penguin in Happy Feet), in an artificial, ice-floe like habitat set behind thick glass. The room is cold, and the penguin area looks even colder. There's water in front of the ice floe, and a viewing ramp set up so you can actually see the penguins swimming underwater at eye level. The boys love it and run back and forth along the ramp, skipping past the dutifully lined up, quiet, afraid-to-break-the-silence Singaporean kids. The penguins like it too, swimming close to the glass thinking our boys have food to give.
It's hard to drag them out of there (Malou too, is enjoying the airconditioning), but the next part of the park calls, quite literally. It's a collection of talking birds - parakeets, parrots, makaws and mynahs - whose cages identify which words they can supposedly speak. Most of it is the usual, "How are you," "Give me a kiss," "Hello," "Polly want a cracker, but certainly it's entertaining for the kids, who repeat the suggested verbiage and wait for the respective bird to imitate.
We see pink flamingos, white-headed egrets, black-winged ibises, a pelican show, hawks, falcons, eagles (no Philippine monkey eating eagles though), the world's tallest man-made waterfall (according to the park brochure, anyway), and finally, after a monorail ride, it's back to the penguins again before heading out. The boys find the birds interesting, and God Bless Eric Carle some of the birds they recognize from his books - like Mixed-Up Chameleon and Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See "story by Bill Mawtin Junwor" according to Hadrien.
We're back on the bus and the MTR to the hotel, and for dinner meet up with Ninang Mai, who lives here in Singapore, and Nonie, Jill and the twins, Miggy and Gabby. For an authentic Singapore dining experience we head out to the hawker centre at Newton Circle.
Our decision to get Hainanese Chicken had nothing to do with the fact that we had been at a bird park the whole day. But certainly it was a tasty finish!
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