Three days ago, on Aug 5, Chels and I headed out on a little domestic tourism trip. To a place where I have not gone in at least 10 years. I really cannot remember when I last visited this little touristy spot in the west. Jurong Bird Park is probably one of the most old-school attractions around Singapore. Since it was still the holidays I thought it was a good idea to spend a day outside in a place we don’t normally go to.
It also helps that the bird park has a 50% discount this month for Singaporeans. (#SG50 again)
Turns out Chelsea was at Gardens by the Bay earlier in the day, so it really was a day filled with exciting touristy activities for her. (And yes, there were a lot of tourists at the Gardens as well as the Bird Park)
After getting our tickets, we headed straight for the shows because they only have each show twice a day, and we were just in time for the last ones for the day. The first one we caught was the High Flyers show, which is probably the signature show at the park. It was wildly entertaining because there were just birds flying all around, with parrots making the weirdest human voices and birds flying through hoops and taking money from visitors’ hands. It’s quite entertaining. The part where I remember from my childhood was the last part when all the flamingos came out for photo-taking.
After that we didn’t really have time before the next show (called Kings of the Skies) at 4pm, so we just walked around and saw some flamingos and a chameleon! Pretty cool (for me), not so cool for Chels.
I thought the second show was a bit more boring than the first one because the venue was not sheltered, the presenter went into more technical parts of the show, and it featured mostly hunting birds so variety was limited. However it wasn’t sucky by any means – it was very cool to see eagles, falcons and other big birds flying overhead.
After that show we realised we didn’t really have time left to visit the park itself – we spent more than 90 minutes just watching shows! We headed to the breeding centre which was next to the Kings of the Skies performance venue where we saw little eggs being ‘incubated’, and tiny birds undergoing some form of transition before they are released into the cages.
That’s when we saw this very, very, very cute bird. I think it’s a macaw. It seemed to be very at ease with people so it looked as though it recognised us staring at it. So it did little poses, and unexpectedly moved closer to us by standing on the fence line separating it from other birds. And it came close to us! You can see the photos below. We couldn’t help. Too cute already.
Then we realise that we only had one hour to see the rest of the attractions (park closes at 6pm)! Unreal. We boarded the tram (which replaced a ‘panorail’ monorail system) and headed to the first big attraction, which was the lory loft. Contained a whole BUNCH of colourful birds called lories that were able to fly around freely. Of course you can buy some sweetened nectar to feed the birds so they come to you ($3). Since there are probably tourists doing this touristy thing, you can get up close to birds by just standing around some tourists. Hahaha!
It was quite nice I think. A bit like the butterfly garden in Changi Airport. Just that it’s way easier to spot lories compared to butterflies, and that these birds are LOUD. I thought they got too loud at a point and decided to leave.
Our next big stop was the waterfall. When I was young I remember learning that this waterfall was the highest indoor manmade waterfall in the world. Turns out the bird park now advertises it as the highest manmade waterfall ‘in an aviary’. Turns out they were overtaken by the cloud forest’s waterfall in Gardens by the Bay! (True Singaporean fashion, everything new must be number 1) Of course there were birds in this attraction too, and they were free-roaming as well. Quite cool to see the non-flying bird that looked like a peacock with punkish hair.
Soon it was time to catch the last tram, and off we went. Just before we left we checked out the penguin exhibit too. At the pick-up/taxi point, we saw many tourists waiting for taxis. Quite jialat cos they are stuck all the way in Jurong and not Marina Bay. Oh well!
Must say I really enjoyed the bird park despite being there for just a few hours. It’s really quite fascinating to visit these touristy places because these attractions are just nearby! Don’t need to take a flight to some foreign zoo when you have a few good ones here. Given the bird park’s age (it opened on 3 Jan 1971 ohmytian it’s really a pioneer generation attraction), it is in great shape.
Chels and I decided to drive up the nearby hill – Jurong Hill. It was my first time but Chels remembered going up there in the past with her parents. I didn’t even know that there was a hill! (The hill helped them with the waterfall by providing the cliff for the water to fall off) It’s quite cool because there was a park and an observation tower that allowed you to see into the distance (nothing much really, just Jurong Island and industrial areas). The park was interesting because there were many Tembusu trees, and many of them were planted by foreign dignitaries in the 1970s. Must be part of their itinerary when they visit then-still-developing Jurong. Quite interesting. It was at though the park was stuck in time. The trees grew, but I’m sure nothing much changed.
After that we had dinner! We went to Lorong Kilat ‘cos it’s near my place and I’ve never really explored the getting-quite-hip street. We had kimchi hotpot at Woorinara, and had dessert at Carpenter and Cook (finally!). Nice way to end the day 🙂
Swee Life 