Singapore!

We flew to Singapore for a long weekend again recently. We always stay in the same hotel and it's nice to be familiar with the area. This was our first in a series of "vacations" before the middle of June. B needs to burn vacation days as he will be very busy during the second half of the year ramping up to plant startup next spring.

We decided to re-visit the Singapore Zoo on this trip.

We saw a school of fish trying to clean off a hippo. This system benefits both the fish and the hippo. Even as the hippo moved around, the fish kept right on eating the algae off the hippo's back.

We returned to the Fragile Forest exhibit which we'd visited on a previous trip. This is a massive biodome with lots of critters including 2-toed sloth (which I've yet to see), ring-tailed lemurs and Malayan Flying Fox bats.  I discussed my concerns about this particular exhibit in a previous post. This time there was a woman cuddling up to one of the lemurs and petting it while the male companion took photos. The docent in me had a real problem with this. There is signage with instructions not to do this, but, you know, no one reads zoo signage.

At least no one was bothering the bats, well, except, maybe for this duck. I don't know what he/she had in mind. Maybe it was just resting? Maybe thinking about trying to get at some of the fruit? The duck is up high on the left half of the photo. The nearest bat is about 4-5 feet away hanging at a slightly lower level than the duck.

There is a new exhibit with polar bear, raccoon dogs and wolverines. (I was probably the only Buckeye around! That's my joke for The Ohio State University Buckeye football fans!))

The Zoo is filled with interesting botanicals. One of them is the pinwheelflower. It's also called crepe jasmine--Tabernaemontana divaricata. We have these all over where we live but now I know the identity. They are native to India but are cultivated across SE Asia.  The stem bleeds a milky sap and the roots are used for headaches, hypertension and scabies. At the Singapore Zoo, they use this shrub to screen off unsightly areas of the animal exhibits. It says that on zoo signage.

We visited the Gardens by the Bay at the huge Marina Bay Sands Complex. We hadn't found the time to visit here on previous trips to Singapore but this time we made it. The day was overcast and even rained a little but we enjoyed it. The tagline is "Where Wonder Blooms" and it is described as a national garden and premiere horticultural attraction. We agree it is a really interesting garden.

Here we found the iconic super trees!

The structures are tree-like vertical gardens. There are 18 of the "super trees." Twelve of them are together in a super tree grove. They are between 25 and 50 m tall. There is an elevated walkway, 22 meters up and 128 meters long. For a fee, you can enter the walkway instead of experiencing the trees from the ground level. We enjoyed them from the ground level.

The tree canopies are designed to provide shade. The very top of the trees does provide some shade but maybe the hope is that the plants will grow upwards and eventually fill the top?  In the evenings there are light shows accompanied by music. You can also dine high up in one of the canopies. They have very detailed signage about the sustainable cycles of the gardens themselves.

We particularly enjoyed several of the smaller garden areas and really liked the giant water play area for children.

Some interesting botanicals...
A cannonball tree-a member of the Brazil nut tree family. Fruit is the size and shape of a cannonball.Aromatic flowers sprout from the tree trunk. Native to S. America and likes tropical climates.

Silk floss tree - look at those spikes!

There was a very dry, rocky garden area. We found this interesting succulent, cactus, ?

What about the resort itself?

There are 3 towers connected by a rooftop pool and park.  You can get a really good look at it from the Bay Gardens.

At the base is a huge shopping center filled with high-end shops and restaurants. We had lunch again at Gordon Ramsey's Bread Kitchen. Yum, though expensive!