Day 8 : River Safari & Alive Museum

Early morning breakfast was the same as the day before. We ate some .... and then walked to Chinatown. We could have taken the train. But we preferred to walk and do a bit of exploring. After all, Chinatown wasn't far away ..... it only took us 15 minutes on a leisurely stroll. The weather today was again so beautiful! It wasn't hot at all!

Saw these on Nankin Street :

I found the Buddha Tooth Relic temple ..... but I did not go inside. Instead, I went to the Chinatown Market Food Centre, as I wanted to eat a typical Singaporean breakfast - economy fried beehoon. There were several stalls selling .... and I chose to eat at this vegetarian stall ...

Vegetarian Fried Beehoon, SGD2.50

Tofu skin, cabbage and vegetarian char siew; tasted a bit bland, the nicest item on the plate was the char siew 

From Chinatown, we took the train to Ang Mo Kio. At the bus interchange, we took bus no. 138, which brought us right to River Safari. In fact, it's side by side with Singapore Zoo and Night Safari. This area is beautifully landscaped, and it would be nice to just hang out here. There are also food, drinks and snacks sold ....

Boat sculpture at Safari Square

Our tickets were also pre-booked, so with it, we went right in to the River Safari, Asia's first and only river-themed wildlife park. The park has 2 zones - Rivers of the World and Wild Amazonia. Rivers of the World included species from Mekong River, Mary Rive, Mississippi River, Yangtze River, Ganges River.

Indian Gharial
We saw one swimming .... it was quite fascinating! 

The Giant Panda Forest was an air-conditioned area, and we could feel the cold as soon as we approached it .... brrr .... and here, there were a pair of red pandas .... and of course Singapore's resident pandas, Kai Kai and Jia Jia.

Kai Kai
We watched Kai Kai play round a bit .... and then he climbed up this tree stump to sleep .... zzz .... 

Some children were making loud noises, so Jia Jia, whose really shy, retreated inside ... so we did not see her at all. 

A panda sculpture outside the Gant Panda Forest

I enjoyed the river boat ride a lot - the Amazon River Quest! 

The ride commenced .... 

Along the ride, we could see animal such as ... 

Collared Peccary

Caribbean Flamingo 

Scarlet Ibis

Capybara

Other animals included the brown-tufted capuchin, brown-headed spider monkey, giant anteater, Brazillian tapir, black howler monkey, and even the jaguar! Of course I wished I had a better look of the jaguar. It was nowhere in sight when our boat passed by ....

Loved the splashes as the boat glided downriver ... 

Park Map

Source : http://www.riversafari.com.sg/visitor-info/park-map.html

There's also a Squirrel Monkey Forest, where small squirrel monkeys were free to roam about and finally, an Amazon Flooded Forest right before the exit. The Amazon Flooded Forest is the world's largest freshwater aquarium - and here there were many huge manatees which captured our attention ...

We hung around here for a while before exiting River Safari. We took a bus back to AMK Bus Interchange .... and had lunch there. 

Old Chang Kee

I couldn't resist OCK every time I see it; I just had to buy something! And yeah, I can very much with certainty now that the Curry O here was much tastier compared to the ones in KL! We had a Curry O, Sardine O, and 2 skewers of deep-fried meat roll and cuttlefish.

Wagyu Menchi-katsu Rice Burger Demi-glace

Hmn .... sad to say, I did not like this burger at all; the combination did not do it for me .... 

After we filled our tummies, we went to ....

That's me posing in The Little Mermaid installation

Alive Museum @ Suntec City

Alive Musem is a trick art museum, and I find it quite cute! But you need to be able to pose well and also you need a good photographer! I couldn't pose quite right, and my expressions were all wrong ... but then it was fun, anyway. 

After spending some time here, we then went shopping at Suntec City, before going to Orchard Road. We snacked at Orchard Road .... and then found ourselves too full for dinner. Lol. 

4Fingers Crispy Chicken @ ION

The soy garlic wings/drummets were better; the hot wings/drummers were overly salty; but I liked the seaweed fries; SGD9.90 for 6 pieces, fries and free flow of drinks; we had to wait quite long, however, because there were so many people! 

ION was winner of the best dressed building this Christmas with its Christmas Bedazzle theme. What captured my attention was this outdoor Christmas tree by Swarovski. The tree was adorned with 28,000 glittering crystals ..... it was so pretty that it took our breaths away! 

The giant Swarovski tree outside Ion 

Walk into the tree and find a rotating chandelier inside .... 

So pretty!!

Orchard Road was as busy as ever! 

At Wisma Atria, we had ....

Llao Llao Natural Frozen Yogurt, SGD4.90 (small) with 1 topping

Very rich and creamy and tasty, no wonder people queued up for it

Taiyaki with red bean filling
Freshly made, the taiyaki was very tasty when hot! The filling was quite generous, and the pastry chewy.

We shopped at Takashimaya before returning to our hostel for the night. :))