Night Safari (16 August)

First the Day Zoo... Now.. Night Safari... After fish spa at Qian Hu that day, Alan and Jieying, Dear and I continued our day's outing at the night safari...

Join us on our night journey now... This way please....

Welcome to Night Safari!!!! Ulu Ulu......

Warm welcome of native music.. Bang.. Thump... Bong...

Ew.... What's that... A Python... Do you dare to put it round your neck??

With all the pictures and stuff, it was almost 7.00pm.... There's a tribal dance show at this time.. Its right beside the Bongo Burgers restaurant. Wanted to dine here initially, so we went hunting for a table which had a good view of the stage.. Managed to snuggle at some seats around the bar.

And the show begins.... A rather interesting side as you see the performers dressed in the tribal costumes dancing around, shooting mouth arrows and spit out fire from their mouth.. They had to drink something, hold it in their mouth before they light the torch and blow. I wonder is it kerosene... Seems rather dangerous huh... I wouldnt have dared to try that myself... The show lasted for about 30 minutes.

Nearing the finale.. Fire spits from several of them. Dear did not manage to capture the finale. It was rather spectacular....

After the show, its time to satisfy our fumbling stomachs. Being a Citibank cardholder, we are entitled to a 20% discount at Bongo burgers. Dear and I went to check out the prices. It was rather expensive. Firstly, burgers were min $10. Drinks were a seperate cost of $5. As Citibank had a 1 for 1 buffet promotion at Ulu Ulu restaurant, we decided to go for that instead. Its only $5 more per person at $20nett after discount and we get to enjoy International buffet spread and desserts too... Hmmm.. this is better....

The restaurant interior.. Not bad huh... The idea is to create it like a village. People can either choose ala carte or buffet.. Ala carte prices are not cheap too.. but it serves grills.. which smells good!!!

Yayyy... FOOD!!!!!

Sweet.. Sweet Moments....

It was 8.45pm now.. We have just finished dinner. Problem is... its almost 9.00pm... and we have yet to step foot into the night safari... Oh No!!! Lucky for us, the park closes at 12 midnight... It opens from 7.00pm to 12 midnight daily... Restaurants and gift shops operates from 6.00pm. Admission fees is $22.70 for adult (not inclusive of tram rides.) I am not very sure about child price though... As we had bought our tickets from the passion card deal, it only costs us $10 each... hiak..hiak.. hiak...

Alright lah... enough crap... let's go in... no more time to waste..... Got your tickets... Excuse me sir... we are here for the night safari... Here's my ticket...

As it was almost time for the next show at 9.30pm, before we even have a chance to explore the park, the night safari staff advised that we start queueing for the animal show first... Quite boring just waiting there lah... So what we do??? keke... We played around with light sticks....

Chain of Light Hearts..........

Finally.. after the wait of about 30 to 45 minutes... we are ready to go in for the show.. As flashes are strictly prohibited during the show.. most of the pictures taken are either blur or not clear... So not much pictures to share... We were warned that by using flash, the animals might be frightened or might be provoked and attack us.... So.... DONT USE YOUR FLASH PLEASE!!!

And the performance begins....

These cute little otters were rather "li hai" (Chinese for good). They were able to differentiate between plastic, metal and paper and put the respective items into the recycle bin. Due to their size, they had some problems with the metal cans.. Rather funny.. haha...



The animals can appear from all directions. One of this.. cant quite remember the name liaoz... looks like a beaver.. walk across the rope at the audience area and hang itself upside down.. We were once again reminded not to use flash at this juncture. Using flash cameras will cause the animal to lose its grip and fall.. It might injure the animal....

This python that you see here was in fact hidden under the seats amongst the audience on the left aisle.. Lucky it was not under my seat, I would have freaked!!! Snakes were my biggest phobia... There were screams amongst the crowd when they said an animal is hiding amongst us... It is really scary if you are the one seating on it...

The show ended at 10.00pm after a full 30 minutes of animals' performance. Well.. I must say, it was pretty worth the wait.... But then.... we only have 2 hours left to explore the park... At this time, I suggested that we take the tram instead. Its a 45 minutes ride around the park and covers most of the attractions with a stop over in between. Choosing to walk would require 1 hour to cover the 3 walking parks. Hence, we got the tram tickets instead.

Finally, got the tram tickets.. Quite ex lorz... $10 per person... but it covers almost the whole park... As no flashes were allowed, capturing the animals clearly posed to be a very difficult feat.. Saw many interesting animals such as the hyenas, etc during the ride... Didn't manage to capture any decent shots in the dark. Here's some pictures from the Night Safari website - http://www.nightsafari.com.sg/.

Pit Stop at the East Lodge! We alighted here and went on the fishing cat walking trail and the leopard trail... This is taken at a very interesting cafe that uses Zebra as their theme...

With very much patience and balance, Dear managed to capture 2 very clear shots of the animals in action... Yes... sadly only 2.... but he tried very hard liaoz... No flash... very difficult to take good pictures...

Its 11.00+pm now... Very close to closing time, off we went back to the East lodge in wait of the 2nd half of the tram journey... Due to the number of people and the lack of tram seats, we actually had to wait for a few trams.. before we could actually board one... Waste soo... much time waiting that I couldnt visit the last trail... Also the one I have been looking forward to because of its suspension bridge....

The tram ride ended at almost 12 midnight.. 10 minutes to closing... The gift store was still open... Went in for a peek..

Some final shots before we say goodbye to Night Safari.... Hoot... Hoot.... Some people said that there is really not much to see in Night Safari.. It had been a rather fun night out for the 4 of us... Wouldnt mind going again... but not in the near future lah....

Qian Hu Fish Spa (16 August)

Its been sometime now since I last updated my blog. Rather busy at work lately after I had joined the company's recreation club. Here's an update on my latest outing faze.. We went for fish spa again.. This time round, its Qian Hu - Singapore.

I have heard of fish spa at this place before but I do not know how is it like to experience fish spa here. At present, this is the cheapest fish spa outlet in Singapore. It charges only $10 per 30 minutes session. For people who finds Qian Hu too out of the way.. Fret not! Free shuttle bus services are provided on regular intervals of about 20 minutes from Choa Chu Kang and Boon Lay Interchange. More information on the bus schedule can be obtained from http://www.qianhu.com/.

As all of us have not been to this place before, we decided to make a tour of it. The group for today includes my 2 cousin in laws: Yaling and Yazi and colleague Jieying and her boyfriend, Alan. Not forgetting of course, Dear and me.

Let us first explore the indoor aquarium..

Exploring the fishes... In Qian Hu.. most of the fishes are free for you to catch with the pails and nets and hand it to the counter for payment. Being a person who does not quite know how to appreciate fishes except on the dinner plate, I find these aquarium rather expensive.

Note: These fishes are sick and had to be quarantined. They are not for sale.

Let us now move on to the outdoor landscape garden where most of the attractions are.. The outdoor garden is rather small in size. It comprises of a koi feeding pool, a pool for some tortoise rearing, small kelong for children to catch fishes and some pools for the fish spa. Koi and turtle feed is at $2 per packet I think. For children between 3 to 12 years old and wish to experience the kelong fishing like their parents during kampung days is at $5 for 30 minutes. The fishes are very, very small...

Cute turtles in the turtle pool...

An overall view of the place

Finally, let's go for the fish spa.. For $10, you get a 30 minutes session of fish spa in the pool, towels and slippers. Every minute counts. If you exceed the given time, you will be charged at $0.30 for each additional minute. They would give you some time grace as it takes time for one to wash the legs, change shoes etc.....

Let's change our footwear first.

Alrighety.. lets start dipping... It must have been rather ticklish for Yaling and Yazi seem a little squeamish at first......



The fishes are rather small and probably due to the size of the pool and number of people, I dont find the feeling as great as the one in Kampong Fish Therapy or Malacca. In the previous 2 fish spas, fishes were at least 10 times bigger. The fishes in these pools were rather 'ini machiam' in Malay (=tiny)... To make it worse, they were rather sparse.. There were indeed fishes coming to bite your feet but in Kampong fish therapy and Dr Fish Spa, Melaka.. the fishes never leaves you. Even when you lift your feet and expose only your heels, the fishes still continues to nibble at it.

Being first timers, Alan and Jieying were rather cool about the experience. But when asked to go over to the bigger fishes pool... Jieying was rather jittery about it.. In fact, none of the group wana try out the big fishes with Dear and me.

Bored with the tiny fishes, Dear and I decided to give this a shot!

The fishes are indeed much bigger here. In fact, it is probably 50 times bigger than what we faced in Malacca or even at Kampong fish therapy... And when it bites, you can really feel its mouth nibbling at you.. Unlike the previous fishes whereby you only feel small little sensations, the big fishes here gives you much greater sensation.. Rather fun I must say... This is where I got squeamish too.. keke... Sadly.. only spent 10 minutes here... Not quite enough....








The big fish I was talking about.. What do you think? Is it really BIG BIG?? (P.s: FYI, those hairy legs are obviously not mine... They belonged to Dear..)

See how cool Dear look even when he is being nibbled by the big fishes...

30 minutes sure passes by rather quickly.. before we know it.. TIME's UP!! The whole group all agree that 30 minutes is definitely not enough... The next time round when we come, we would go for a 1 hour session straight. Anywayz.. it only costs $20 for 1 hour. Compared to other fish spas.. its rather cheap... Yaling and I somehow still missed the one in Melaka where we could do a full body dip.