Visit to the Singapore Zoological Gardens

I do face-painting as a side job, and sometimes the locations I'm requested to work at can be pretty awesome! I was lucky enough to be invited to a company function last week that was being held in the Singapore Zoological Gardens, and since my job was only for a couple hours in the morning it gave us enough time to explore the entirety of the zoo for the rest of the day.

Yay elephants! ...alright, these are just statues. Real life ones further down the page though!

The Singapore Zoological Gardens (or simply the Singapore Zoo, or the Mandai Zoo) occupies 28 hectares of land and plays host to about 315 species of animals/reptiles/birds, most of which are housed within spacious, naturalistic "open" exhibits. Upon alighting at the zoo you may choose to explore the site on foot or on tram, the latter of which is slightly more expensive - at the time of posting normal tickets are S$20 per adult and S$13 per child, and S$25 per adult and S$16 per child if traveling by tram. Personally, I would recommend going about on foot as this allows you to take your time with the individual exhibits, and perhaps even first-hand close-up encounters with some of the tamer creatures that are allowed to roam the zoo freely:

A small number of peahens and peacocks can always be found strutting leisurely all over the zoo.

And within the exhibits too:

A shy mousedeer that came out of the fauna to greet the visitors. We were seriously only inches from it! Mousedeer are housed within the Fragile Forest exhibit.

I suppose I don't have to go into detail on all the different animals we have in the zoo, although you can be rest assured that it has a lot of big cats, African wildlife, reptiles and even amphibians on the list:

 

You're never going to get a clear shot of this beast.

The zoo also has regular shows that feature elephants, seals, monkeys and more:

The elephant show at Elephants At Work and Play. Be prepared to get sprayed if you sit in the front.

The sea lion show at Splash Safari, Shaw Foundation Amphitheatre. Prepared to get soaked here too!

However, if watching animals from behind a glass screen or from a bench seat just doesn't quite do it for you, you can also take part in feeding some of the mammals straight out of your hand for a small token fee of S$5. Feeding was definitely the highlight of our trip to the zoo! 

Michi's feeding them in this one but MANATEES ARE MY NEW FAVORITE ANIMAL

LOOK AT THOSE PUPPY FACES. SERIOUSLY HOW DO YOU RESIST A FACE LIKE THAT

Giraffes have really, really long tongues that are about as prehensile as an elephant's trunk and a monkey's tail combined. Also, slimy.

Those were the only two animal feeding times we managed to catch, but as biased as I admit I am I would still recommend feeding the manatees over the giraffes. There was definitely a much larger crowd in demand for the giraffes, but feeding took only all of ten seconds since the keepers only gave us like... five tiny sticks of sliced carrots. We were also asked to feed and leave quickly to make way for the next people in line, and according to the keeper we were not allowed to pet the giraffes as they "could get nervous and hit you with their necks". The manatees, on the other hand, took at least five minutes to finish feeding - we were given a full basket of sliced potatoes and carrots, and since there wasn't a crowd we were allowed to take our time as long as the food would last! Being allowed to pet them was also a huge plus (they feel like wet canvas). 

The zoo closes at 6pm daily, and if you're the more adventurous type you can continue your trip to the Night Safari which is right next to the zoo. I'll save that for another blog post when we actually get to explore it - if I'm lucky, maybe when my next face-painting job calls me there.

Subliminal last image post~