The Singapore Zoo, Little India, and China Town

On Friday Dan and I went to the famous Singapore Zoo located 3 transfers and a hour and a half bus ride away. The Zoo has no fences, and most of the animals are free to roam around, meaning some will even come up to your feet. Its really cool! The more dangerous animals such as the lions have a little moat between them and the path, although the moat seems awful small... The Zoo also has a night safari which starts when it gets dark, around 7pm. So before the night safari we went to KFC and got a family dinner since we were both famished. We surprisingly finished all of the food. We bought tickets for both the zoo and the safari since we had came so far to see it. However what we didnt understand is that we bought walking tickets only. So when it came to getting into the vehicle we were told that we could only walk, however as we were exiting another staff person came up and directed us to a vehicle. We tried to explain that we didnt have the ticket to do so, but because of the language barrier he was confused and so were we, so we just took the ride. It was a pretty cool ride, the path it took was actually separate from the regular zoo and so we saw animals that you dont see in the zoo such as the laughing hyena. Afterwards we walked the path which was incredibly humid and hot since the night part of the zoo is located in a rainforest. All in all though it was alot of fun, minus the bus rides. More pics of the Zoo animals can be found if you click here.

Sunday we went to Little India and China Town. The smells and craziness of both places was mind boggling. We walked around Little India to experience the India culture as best as possible and then went to Mustafa which is a huge shopping center located in Little India which is basically 5 Sams Clubs on top of each other, starting 3 floors below ground. This place has everything you could ever need, it was amazing and quite confusing. It should be noted that the Indian community is pretty close knit in Singapore and so many come here to shop no matter where they live in Singapore. China Town was a short train ride away from Little India, so we decided to check it out. It wasn't quite as exciting as Little India

but had a lot of food to offer, so we had some meat (kind of like beef jerky) which was really good. I also took a picture of a fruit called a durian, which has a spiky shell and a very distinct smell. It is only found in South East Asia. Some people love the smell, I am one of those people, and some cant stand it, therefore it is prohibited in any public transportation or public area. A professor at ISU recommended that I try it, and since I saw it today I thought I would take a picture of it, but have not yet tried it, but I do plan to. You can find more pictures of our Little India and China Town trip if you click here.

Later,

Brett