Bird Paradise and goodbye Singapore

​

For our final full day in Singapore Aaron made us pancakes and let us sample the legendary Sparks maple syrup imported from New York City (New York City??!!)

Then it was off to Bird Paradise! 

After a very hot first tour we found the penguin exhibit!! 15 degrees felt positively (ant)arctic and the penguins were total dorks. The enclosure allowed us to see their goofy antics out of the water and to see them transform into sleek torpedos under the water.  We kept coming back to this exhibit, one for the fun penguins and two for the cool air.  I (Kylie) spent a lot of time laying on a cool (literally and figuratively) rock watching the penguins go by.

Mikaya is a peacock. 🦚 We saw lots of spectacularly colourful birds or paradise, as well as some gray parrots. Marc wanted to bring home an African gray parrot when we were in Uganda 20 years ago.  Thankfully I convinced him not to as we would be looking after it longer than our children. 😛 We also saw some birds in action (a type of weaver bird) constructing their nests.  They would fly around and grab a piece of grass and then expertly and quickly weave it into the other part of the nest.  So interesting to watch! 

I had been telling the kids that there was only one bird that I HATED and that was the maribu storks that we saw in Kenya and Uganda.  They always hung around garbage pits and were covered in open sores and would run at you when you walked by them.  This is me reacting when they brought one out for the predators show. 🤬🐤👎 You can see one on top of the rock in the background.

Even the bathrooms have a beautiful view. 

We were at the birds of paradise centre for Easter so there were a lot of decorations.  Mikaya really wanted this picture frame picture of all of us.  Apparently it was not taken properly so here is the original and then her zoomed in appropriate version. 

After the birds of paradise centre we left the kids at home to go to the hawker stands on their own for dinner and the adults went out to a fancy Malay and Chinese food fusion restaurant. Was so different from any food Marc and I had tried before and was absolutely delicious.  We all wore batik clothes provided by Aaron and Su. 

These little appetizer bites were delicious. A crispy cup that you filled with white fish, honey, chili sauce and cilantro.  So tasty! 

Off for one more juice and now off to Japan! Thank you so much to Aaron and Su and family for your wonderful hospitality. We all had such a good time! Everyone wants to come back soon! 

Singapore pt 2- Changi and more hawkers and downtown!

​

After Aaron and Su and kids left us at Changi we enjoyed our colonial lifestyle at Changi villas. The villas are the old British officers’ residences on the seaside and they reminded Kylie and I of Kenyan hotels. Similar architecture, construction materials and decoration. The illusion was completed by a large contingent of Indian or Bangladeshi gardeners constantly working on the grounds.

In addition to using the beautiful and cool pool (we only got in trouble twice!) we strolled on the beach, played games, read books and (of course!) ate at the local hawker stands.

We told the kids they could get fresh juice every day and they didn’t let us forget. Hard to turn down a cup of liquid watermelon when it’s 33 degrees out.

One afternoon we boarded a bumboat (real term) to visit the island of Pulau Ubin. Although it’s a 15 minute boat ride it feels like a completely different country. Boat captains vying for customers, corrugated tin roofs, crocodile warnings…

We enjoyed a walk through the jungle and along a mangrove forest, but Mikaya in particular was a bit unnerved by the crocodile signs. We didn’t see one, but we did see some lovely flowers and a few random dogs.

Back in Changi it was time for fruit juice! Hard for a parent to say no to blended tropical fruit.

We got back to Redhill in time to greet Su as she arrived home from work. Su really does enjoy talking to the kids and she has a way of making anyone talking to her feel like the most interesting person in the room.

That night to celebrate our return from Changi we took the train downtown to eat at one of the largest and most famous hawker stands.

The size and crowding was a bit overwhelming at first (at least for us Canadians) but the amazing food and stellar company won us over quickly.

From there we began an impromptu walking tour taking in the famous Merlion as well as a harbour light show.

It was a gorgeous night and the kids were feeding on the city energy. There were plenty of beautiful people out with their selfie sticks, and parties and runners enjoying the cool evening. After a nice long walk and a few mildly dangerous merry go rounds we hopped a bus back to Redhill to get the kids to bed way too late…

Still have to talk about our last days and Bird Paradise!!

I’ll leave you with a statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, the purported founder of modern Singapore, pictured here well proportioned despite being viewed from below, in the classical style.

Here is Zeke’s journal entry about Singapore:

[When we first landed we got a very cool taxi with LED lights. When we got to their apartment building we got greeted by them all sitting on benches in front of their apartment. When we got inside it was 12:00am (to our brains) and everyone was hungry so Aaron and Su took us to eat at the hawker stands. Amazing food for cheap. We all got juice at an amazing juice stand. I got dragonfruit peach. 

Some similarities are just like Canada there are beautiful forests/jungles in Singapore. Now a difference is that it is VERY HOT! In Singapore the temperature never changes, even for winter it’s hot! I noticed that people don’t drive their own cars to get around. They only take Ubers or taxis, bus or trains to get around. I noticed that only the rice people have houses. Almost everything was in walking distance from their apartment like we walked to the barber, the grocery store, restaurants and more. 

The waterslides were so fun! My favourite slide was the one called the royal flush. You go in a big tube with max 6 people and you go down a slide that ends up in a toilet bowl and go down a big drop to a ramp. I did that one 8 times I think. The end. ]