tl;dr explored Chinatown, checked out Sentosa and saw awesome animals at the Night Safari…calmer day – only 6 activities
Activity 1 – Waking Up:
Now normally, I would not consider waking up to be an “activity,” but it was. I went to bed close to 4am thanks to a night out at Zouk and successfully set alarms starting at 8am…Well, this may not come as a surprise to those that know me, but I snoozed. And by snoozed, I mean I woke up from my first alarm and shut off all my back-ups before going back to sleep. All of a sudden its 11am and I missed the Chinatown walking tour at 9:30am. Undeterred, I climb out of bed and take a shower. Walking to Chinatown, I spot this cool building with tons of foliage all over it.
Activity 2 – Chinatown:
First things first, I need food…I pull up trusty google and voila found a great restaurant right on the main Chinatown street. I sit down and order some noodle and fish. Not so good…the noodles tasted like they had been bathed in soy sauce for hours and the fish just wasn’t that tasty.
Next up, the sights.
Sri Marimamm Temple (above)
Buddha Tooth Relic Temple (above)
Activity 3 – Chinatown Heritage Center:
This museum covers what life was like for Chinese immigrants. The museum is situated in a former tailor’s shop and residences line the second floor. It was amazing to see how people lived in early 1900s Singapore: 6x6ft rooms that housed entire families, shared bathrooms and kitchens, and shared rooms between people working opposite shifts allowing for optimal bed usage. The museum has an area devoted to the work and life of this population and how it evolved over the years. Ultimately, it was a really cool museum that taught me a lot (though the audio guide did drag on a bit).
Activity 4 – Sentosa and Fort Siloso:
Sentosa is an island off of the main island of Singapore. It is purely devoted to leisure activities as it has multiple resorts, a universal studios, and numerous other activities (zip line, luge run, 4D adventures, etc.). I took the monorail to get to the island, but there is also a cable car that provides great views. Once on the island you can take a different cable car to get from location to location – I took it to Fort Siloso. One of the stops has a replica Merlion that you can enter (I didn’t).
Fort Siloso is a former British military outpost that was used to protect Singapore from maritime attacks. I was excited to learn about the history of military conflicts in the region and especially WWII, but this fort did not provide much information on these topics. There was a decent amount of information the purpose of the fort and how it functioned, but that wasn’t what I was looking for. I ended up skipping the various trails due to time constraints and losing interest.
Activity 5 – Quick Dinner and Walk Through a Mall:
My major time constraint was the Night Safari, which started at 7:15. Instead of track down some user-reviewed and repudiated restaurant, I settled for simple, good food court food. The mall was just like any other mall in this part of the world.
Activity 6 – Night Safari:
The Night Safari is part of the Singapore Zoo and allows you to see the animals when they are most active…at night. I read a lot of trip advisory reviews to prepare. My recommendations as follows:
- Book in advance online through the zoo for the 7:15pm entry
- Wear whatever clothing makes you comfortable…you will be doing walking
- Try and arrive by 6:45 and do the tram first
- Right after the tram, do the show
- Walk around afterwards…the path can get confusing as it is dark and you aren’t sure if you are going the right way, but you are…just keep walking
- You can try and take pictures, but no flash is allowed – so I have tons of pictures that don’t really show the awesomeness of the night
Now that I covered that, I can move onto WHAT the Night Safari actually is. You sit on a tram for a ~15+minute ride through the zoo pausing at the major animals. I literally saw lions and tigers and bears…oh my. But I also saw rhinos, hippos, elephants, giraffes, hyenas, and other animals (many of the species I was probably seeing for the first time). The tram has a has a recorded speaker that lets you know what you are looking at and some details about each animal. One interesting point, many of the animals roam free and could technically walk over and say hi – of course none of the dangerous animals have this setup, but many do (there are entry and exit gates for the trams). One of the tigers followed our tram from the entrance to the exit staring us down.
After the tram, get in line for the show. My tram ended too late for the 8:30 show (it was filled), so I decided to walk through the various trails (all on pavement). This took me about an hour to complete, so I would recommend budgeting about 1.5 hours. During the walk you can stop at a Lion lookout point. Lions sleep on average 20hrs/day (not bad), but they tend to eat between 8 and 9pm. My tram drove by at 8 and they were far away from the food and I walked by them at 9 and they were relaxing by their food – so I missed them eating. The food is strategically placed by the zoo in an area that is visible to guests. Also, some of the enclosures do overlap with the walking trails, but many are unique. There is a bat house and a flying squirrel enclosure, along with many other cool animals (otters, snakes, etc.). A tiger was leaning on the glass for a while – I tried to get a picture, but the quality was terrible.
The show was fun, definitely more geared towards families, but still cool and worth checking out. I won’t spoil the fun. I ended up leaving sometime after 10 (uber pool), but you can stay there until midnight.
I got back to my hostel after 11pm and picked up a snack before heading off to bed to get some much needed rest.
From now on, I am going to try and break the posts up into a few smaller ones…they take too long to write and are too much for a reader to get through in one sitting 🙂
Andrew's Activities 