We have a yummy breakfast at the Food Republic food court in the Sun-Tec Convention Centre: pratas (a Singaporean invention based on the the paratha - pretty much the same thing), warm soy milk, a curry puff, & a sesame ball filled with red bean & peanut chunks).
The food court is behind us in this photo.Since the rain has not let up by 10am, our destination is Orchard Road. Originally, we were not planning to go there - the street is full of huge malls & international brands, much like Ometesando Road in the Harajuku area of Tokyo... not up our alley as far as tourist destinations go. But we figure that the malls will offer some shelter from the wet. We take the MRT from City Hall to Orchard Road & emerge from the subway station to see a large street lined with enormous modern-looking malls, mostly glass and steel buildings with outdoor digital advertisements.
Besides the massive malls, Orchard Road is lined with tall, tropical Heritage trees which had thin, dark trunks & a wide umbrella-like canopy of leaves. They're beautiful, lush, & add so much green to the steel city.
In the cheaper, no-AC, no-lift (what they call elevators here) Lucky Plaza, I find the one souvenir I want from Singapore. I couldn't find it in neither Chinatown nor in Little India. The problem with buying souvenirs in Singapore is that this country is such a product of distinct regional & ethnic culture that it's hard to find something distinctly Singaporean besides the food (& it's a shame we can't bring the food home). Souvenirs can be distinctly Chinese (marble stamps and lion-dancing puppets) or Indian (bejeweled jewelry boxes or little brightly painted Vishnu statues). But I've discovered my fondness for the uniforms of Singapore Airlines flight attendants, particularly the print of their clothing, so a few days ago I set the goal of searching for the fabric. I find it in Lucky Plaza, but it costs of pretty penny: $45 for a 2-meter square. I have a feeling I have paid too much for it, but Robby is absent (getting hot water to heat Atticus's milk) when I try to bargain. He is far superior than I am in the art of bargaining. I don't have the stamina or wit for it. I buy the fabric $15 less than ticket price, but I have a feeling the saleswoman would have dropped her price even more if I had hesitated a bit more. Oh well. I hope I wasn't ripped off too much.
One observation: The majority of housekeeping staff members in our luxury hotel are young men. Why is that?
Another observations: I have encountered more young men who speak English more fluently and comfortably than young women.
We have lunch at a far-out mall called Orchard Central. We find a Mos Burger there, a fast food, hamburger joint we adored in Japan. I have a Mos Cheeseburger, & Robby has a Spicy Mos Burger & Rice Ebi Burger. It isn't as good as I remember it. Here is Robby with the Mos Burger menu:
In the evening, we meet up with 14 other ICA convention-goers (mostly graduate students from USC Annenberg East & West) & walk to Carlton Hotel for a $5 shuttle to the Night Safari. We brave our way through Friday evening traffic. When we arrive to the Night Safari, we are immediately disappointed. The decor looks too much like Disneyland. Employees wear safari outfits, the entrance is decked with fake huts...Generic Polynesian percussion music blaring from the speakers. There are hundreds of tourists milling about, mostly families with rambunctious kids. Tickets are a hefty $22 with $10 for the tram ride. All of us graduate students grumble as we stand in line to buy tickets. Some of us have been traveling or will travel through other Southeast Asian countries & need our money to stretch a bit more. Atticus is tired & grumpy, but thankfully he sleeps through most of our trip through the Night Safari. We hop onto a long tram, & a guide sits at the front & explains the animal habitats on our route through the safari. The path is dark and dimly lit, & each habitat is softly lit with a tall lamp. Between us & the animals is a small, shallow stream. We see lions (between us is a large ditch), deer, rhinoceros, elephants, tigers, hippos, different kinds of hyenas, giant rats, giraffes, zebras, antelopes, mountain goats, the Southeast Asian version of the wart hog, etc. Halfway through the ride, we hop off & take the walking path. We see civets, large otters (hanging out on tree branches), clouded leopards (one stands on a branch staring at the lion across the way), leopards, flying squirrels (very large, fuzzy squirrels that could beat the crap out of our college campus squirrels), & smelly porcupines. Our most favorite experience of all is walking through the bat enclosure. In the dark, we find small bats hanging upside down from branches & flying silently past us from tree to tree. They are both cute & frightening looking, with their big eyes & rodent-like face & angular, skeletal wings & little claws. They hang from trees looking like dried leaves, squirming ornaments. On the netted ceiling of the enclosure are much larger bats that hang, large cocoon structures that make us think of science fiction aliens. No wonder these creatures evoke horror stories.
Keep in mind that we see all of these animals (except the lions, tigers, elephants, rhinoceros, & hippos) up close and personal. The bats & flying squirrels are an arm's length away, & though the leopard is behind glass, he stretches & sleeps just a few feet from us. Despite the cheesy amusement-park feeling, the Night Safari is worth the visit. This isn't meant to be ironic, but the animals, especially the bats, make it all worth it.
Did you know that Malay tigers can climb trees? Or that hippos can open their mouths up to 150 degrees wide? Or that hyenas' jaws have the strength of 1000 pounds?
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