Blue birds and crowds

Waterfall aviary, this is 33m tall

Blue Macaws are the drawcard

Leah's Macaw, I wonder if Rickki
has ever seen any of there?

ION shopping centre on Orchard Road

Fancy

Air-conditioned underground
walkways are a great idea

One small area is preserved traditional shop-houses,
 a stark contrast to the modern shopping buildings

Five weddings on at the Conrad today, one was
even at the pool area

My fav night show, Supertrees

After the show everyone leaving to get to the train,
this is the biggest crown I have seen in Singapore,
its Saturday night and its a long weekend to
celebrate Vesak Day

Its my last full day in Singapore so lets make the most of it, the first stop is Jurong Bird Park about a 20-minute taxi ride out of the city. Oh goody, there are the penguins, they have emperors, are they real? They are not moving, the girl next to me asks her friend the same question, yes, there is movement they must have just been waiting for the first visitors to arrive.

Onwards I go there is lots to explore, rather than bore everyone with my bird obsession lets do highlights list:

• watching everyone go ape over the Australian birds in the ‘Lory Loft’
• sheer size and amount of birds in the waterfall aviary
• blue macaws, the drawcard of the park and the only spot to see 4 different types in one location
• number of flamingos in one pool, but gee did they smell

Eventually its time to farewell the birds and head back to the city, whilst I am touristing Australia is voting on our future. Many people will be enjoying their democratic sausage and its good to see the High Commission in Singapore is in on the act and throwing a few on the barbie.

The next event for today is to see what Orchard Road the famous shopping strip is like, Saturday is the perfect day to go shopping in any city starting at the ION centre, the theory is the higher you go the more expensive the shops are, the lower the cheaper, theory confirmed. It did look a bit strange though to see a Steinway piano store next to a Lego store. The best bit is all the underground tunnels to get between the stores and not have to go out into the sun and cross the roads.

I check them all out and am most impressed by Tangs, a homegrown department store sprouted from the dreams of a door-to-door salesman who arrived from China in 1923. Called the ‘Tin Truck Man’ he carried goods in a tin trunk that became his trademark. Tang brought this prime piece of real estate and his family still own the department store and land. 

A short break in Itsen food hall (my fav Japanese departo), onto the Mac shop and then some welcome relief with the Emerald Hill shophouses, there are only so many shops I can take so its time to return to base via the MRT. This time I have to do a line change at Dohby Gaunt, success whisked back to base in 10 minutes.

Time for a swim and a nanna nap by the pool before tonight's finale. Back in the room, I can see the Fountain of Wealth and the National Stadium, the stadium is a kilometre away but has a screen inside so big I can see clearly what is going on from my room. It also has the largest free-spanning retractable dome roof in the world (of course, Singapore don’t do things by halves) and cost a billion dollars to build. Now I am off to join the Saturday night fun and visit the supertrees!