In Singapore, there are three zoos next to each other: Night Safari, River Safari, and Singapore Zoo. They are one of the best zoos in the world. But since we had already been in Night Safari, we decided to go to the other two zoos. Also, there are two Giant Pandas in the River Safari, so we thought that it world be the best visit to the zoo EVER.
We came into the Singapore Zoo, and monkeys were swinging around on the trees and branches above our heads! They were awesome! We saw Ring-Tailed Lemurs, White-Faced Saki Monkeys (which I call Butt-Face Monkeys, sorry, a bit offensive), and some other species of monkeys swinging around and eating food. After the Monkey Trees, we saw a lake with a Gharial inside it! Did you know that Gharials are critically endangered (CR)? They are, but they’re coming back. Singapore has very successful breeding programs, so Singapore Zoo will contribute to the maintenance of Gharial population.
We wanted to get to the Orangutan Feeding, so we walked quickly, but we could not walk strait because we saw so many other animals! We saw otters, turtles, and many others before we finally got to the Orangutan feeding. We took pictures with the Orangutans. They were awesome! I sill wanted to see the pandas more, but the Orangutans are also very high up on my list of Best Animals That I Have Seen In My Life (I did not make that up). When we stopped taking photographs, we boarded the zoo tram and went to the Elephant Show. We sat down on the bleachers looking at the elephant enclosure, and in a few minutes the show started. The elephants performed all sorts of tricks: strength tricks, smarts tricks, and just funny tricks. Once the elephant trainer’s hat fell of his head, and the elephant picked it up with her trunk and put it on the trainer’s head! It was so funny! In the end of the show, the elephants laid down and one didn’t want to get up. So one of the elephants sprayed the one that didn’t want to get up, and she got up! It was an awesome show.
We saw a lot of other animals, but my favorites where the White tigers. White tigers are Bengal tigers, except with different pigmentation. They are extremely rare. Only one out of every 10,000 Bengal tigers are born this way. A lot of people think that they are albinos, but they are not. I think they are amazing. There are two of them at the Zoo, and the tiger named Pasha was alert and looking around. He seemed to be posing for the pictures. Such a graceful animal.
After the white tigers (and a few other animals) we went to the River Safari Zoo, where there would be the pandas. We went in, but accidentally went the wrong way! But that was not a bad idea, because we got to see the Giant River Otters and the Manatees. I liked the Otters most out of those two because the otters were so much more fun!
This is one of the reasons I liked them a lot. I took the map of the Singapore Zoo and started sliding it all over the glass where the otter was. The otter followed the map around! It’s so funny.
After the otters (and a few other animals) we went to the monkey exhibit, where you could walk in the monkey enclosure! There were instructions not to touch the handrails because the monkeys climb on them. What were the handrails for, then? And sure enough, we went into the enclosure, and there were monkeys sitting on the handrails! We also saw some monkeys cross the sidewalk right in front of us, like in Crossy Road (it’s an iPad/phone/computer game)!
When we finally came out of the (very hot) monkey enclosure, we went across the reservoir (the River Safari is based around a reservoir) to see the Giant Pandas. The door to go in it (for some reason) was inside a gift shop. Maybe it’s like, “Oh yeah, the gift shop has another 100 pandas! Let’s buy them, please!”. After the gift shop, we went inside the real panda enclosure, and then we saw a panda. A PANDA!!!! Her name was Jia Jia. Is it a tradition that pandas should have two names. She was so CUTE! She was eating bamboo when we came in. Not many people were here to look at her, for some reason. Oh, well, just a bigger chance of taking a good picture with her. We took so many pictures, I was afraid that our phones would become fat. The panda was smiling a lot of the time! I think it is one of the coolest animals EVER. A funny thing is that newborn pandas look like piglets – they are pink and naked. And then they grow and turn into fluffy black and white bears. We learned that pandas are no longer endangered species, which is great, but they are still vulnerable.
After the pandas, we went past the exhibits very fast. Our main goal was accomplished: looking at the first Giant Panda in our lives. But something exciting happened. A lizard got out of its enclosure and started walking around, trying to find a place with a hole that it could hide in. Everybody was screaming! I thought it was awesome.
We got out of the zoos happy and satisfied. We really want to come back again.
