Greetings again from the Inn Crowd, our lovely hostel. Very comfy and clean, helpful staff, and quite a mix of people (some very cool surfer types, some whoi have been travelling for 9 months, some loutish Asutralians etc.) so we've not ended up talking much to anyone. Then again, most evenings we've been back fairly late after full days and just wanted to go straight to bed. Rock on!
Mark left you last time on our way to the Botanic Gardens, which was good fun. We had a picnic lunch near where a tree that we used to picnic under used to be. We strolled, looked at trees, got a bit rained on. The two best bits were the National Orchid Garden (soooo colourful and pretty!) and the Evolution Garden (which took you on a journey through the history of plants!). The rain was on and off in its heaviness, but we couldn't avoid it altogether - it's so warm that light rain evaporates off you more or less as fast as it falls.
After the Gardens, we headed into town to show Mark Orchard Road. The walk was longer than we were expecting but fairly quiet, and the rain was negligible by this point. We had a coffee stop in a dead European-style cafe in Tanglin Shopping Centre, which seems to be dying all over. Then we braced ourselves for the crowds and dived into the capitalist fray, half looking for headphones and wedding dresses, but primarily just to see the craziness. We had a wander but had to surrender to sore feet and hunger after a couple of hours. Dinner was satay at Newton Circus hawker centre - yuuuuuummmmmy! With dragonfruit juice and ice kacang to finish off. Very Singaporean, very tasty and many good memories.
The next day was our zoo day, yaaay! We got up early to buy lunch and get the express bus. I was worried that 8 hours at the zoo would be too much time to fill, but in turned out we had to rush through some things to get out before closing time! They had a new show; the old shows, still fairly true to form, were better though (naturally!). They even had the same music as before for the sea lion bit! I was very pleased. Lots of good exhibits, some sad animals, but generally a great day.
An early dinner was very welcome, albeit (alwasit?) only KFC. Topped off with a Ben & Jerry's sundae, it set us up well for the next leg of our zoological odyssey: the Night Safari. Very interesting seeing all the animals in the dark (slightly lit, of course), not to mention the fact that it was all relatively new to me: I'd only been there twice, whereas the zoo I know like the back of my hand (almost). There was also a very good show. We were trying to be quiet, in keeping with the atmosphere of the place, which most other visitors clearly didn't view as a priority. Luckily, most visitors were on the tram rather than the footpaths, so we got a fair amount of peace and quiet, most spectacularly with the tiger who was sleeping right up against the glass in a viewing platform bit. After 3 hours of safari-ing, we were pooped and espress bussed it back home.
So, so far we've done lots, used our time well, enjoyed ourselves and so forth. Only two more whole days here now, then we're off up Malaysia. We won't have time to do everything we wanted/hoped, but we can do our damndest to try!