Jurong Bird Park

Today we decided to check out the Jurong BirdPark since we already had tickets via our ParkHopper passes from the zoo. It was quite a trek out there as it took about an hour and a half each way via public transportation. We got there and immediately jumped on the tram to get the lay of the land, so to speak. It only took about 20 min and took us around the park.

Then we hopped off and walked around on foot for awhile. They had lots of different exhibits that we checked out: penguins, parrots, owls, pelicans, toucans, and dinosaur descendants (this is what they called their flightless birds). They also had a huge walk-in aviary that they called the African Waterfall Aviary. This is the second-largest walk-in aviary in the world and it contains the world's tallest man-made waterfall in an aviary. It was also very warm and humid in there (basically the same as outside...) and they replicate a thunderstorm in there every day. We went to look at the waterfall but then we headed out. Here are a few pictures from our visit:

I probably wouldn't have made the trek out there if we didn't already have tickets, since I'm not super into birds and it was pretty much exactly as expected. The most exciting thing that happened was when a bird pooped on Matt. He thought it was a bug that landed in his hand and he immediately slapped it with his other hand, effectively splattering it all over himself. That was pretty funny. I tried to help him clean it off his shorts but then I accidentally made it worse by smearing it even more. Whoops. It was the biggest thing of bird crap I've ever seen and kind of red, it was weird. So we got to do laundry again this afternoon! 

We took public transport back to our neck of the woods and stopped at Orchard Station for a bite to eat around there. There are a ton of malls in that area so there was lots to see and do. We eventually meandered back to our apartment and decided to call it an early night. We have lots of planning to do and tomorrow is going to be a looooong day. We fly to Africa tomorrow but our flight isn't until 9:20pm our time. Our travel itinerary is then over 20 hours long. So we need to get things packed up and get a good night's sleep. I'm not sure I'll get around to publishing anything tomorrow.

Another fun thing we've started doing is we've been playing a card game given to us by our friends, Eric and Nichole. It's called "Sneaky Cards" and the idea is that each card has a different challenge to interact with strangers in some way. And once you complete the challenge you give them the card. They can then track it and also keep it going by completing the challenge and passing it on again. If people go online and enter the code on the card then I'll be able to see how far the cards spread. So far I've handed out three cards. I found someone who met defined characteristics and gave her the card (I needed a light-haired girl who was wearing a dark shirt), I pre-paid for an item in a vending machine and left the card, and I also sneakily left the card with someone without them noticing. So whenever we have a notable story from that I'll include it here since it's fun, but I figured I'd share the backstory first.  :)