SWELTERING SINGAPORE

Well we decided to use our last long-weekend of the 2006-2007 school year to go to Singapore. We were told a long-weekend would be plenty of time as it was rumoured to be quite boring. Maybe people don't easily let loose in a nation where importing chewing gum carries a jail sentence!!!

Now, anyone who has spoken to Jenn for more than 2 minutes is fully aware of her "fondness" for animals, so it was straight to the world famous Singapore Zoo!

This little Cotton Eared Marmoset feared no 6 foot bald guy with a camera or freckled wife. He even climbed right on the camera lens. Too bad we didn't have 2 camera bodies (perhaps a new camera body is in the Woodland Family future - Hint-40D-Hint).

We could get so close to these tigers it was like watching live theatre by National Geographic. In fact, the entire zoo felt like close encounters with all the animals. I imagine being on the equator and having summer-like weather year round would release some of the limitations placed on zoos that have to deal with summer heat, winter snow and everything in between.

I swear it felt like we were in the jungle, aside from the paved road and zoo-mobile.

The Night Safari was tres cool! Did I mention Singapore is on the equator? That means hot! And wet! Very very WET!!!! Unlike in Canada, where evening brings cool breezes and some relief from the heat of the day, Singapore ( and Hong Kong for that matter ) stay equally hot at night...and wet!

So hot, at times it felt like I was literally on fire.

Jenn spent some time trying to find Tarzan in the jungle but when I reminded her of our air conditioned hotel, satellite TV, dry sheets and the nachos and salsa waiting for us she quickly wrung out her sweat-soaked hair and followed me on to the MRT.

I called the nacho man to ensure our mid-night snack was waiting for us. The orange phone automatically connects you to the guy with the nuclear meltdown Nacho cheese found at ski lodges and Famous Players theatres world wide.

Can you spot any similar features?

How about now??

So clearly Jenn's talent of sticking her tongue up her nose has been around for a while.

You might start to think Jenn is a direct descendant of this tribe of people.

Quick call Steve Erwin! Oh crap he's dead! Now what are we going to do? We miss you Stevo, we really do!

These fire breathers were very cool until they got a very shy guy up on stage and made him take off his shirt. The poor bugger must have had an accident when they tried to make him breath fire and he couldn't, cause he exited stage right promptly!

At the end of the night we were spent. Ask us about the lions and their roar...unreal!!!

Time to take a trip to Orchard road and do some shopping on our last day.

I love taking long shutter speed shots like this.

And doing silly stuff in crazy mirrors is another favourite photographic trick.

We spent half the day in a huge book store and missed out on going downtown, to India town and having a Singapore Sling at Raffles Hotel, which is where it was invented. So if we don't go to Singapore for another long weekend, I'm sure we'll arrange a stop-over some time soon.