Today was the day I realised that I hadn’t brought any walking shoes with me and boy, were we going to be doing a lot of walking today. It started with a trip to Mt Faber because I desperately wanted a trip in a cable car. Last time I was in Singapore I must have been all of 10/12? and it’s one of the few things I remember. After coming up from the MRT (train station) into a shopping centre, it seemed a good enough reason to buy new shoes. The cable car cost $15 one way and man, that freaked me out. Naturally I kept imagining plunging to my death on the freeway below. When we got to the top it was somewhat of a tourist mecca. How come I don’t remember that from the last trip? The walk down was jungle-esque and the hokey gift shops were nowhere in sight.

Back to the hotel room to prepare for our big excursion: the zoo. Now you might think that a zoo is a zoo, but the Singapore zoo is something else entirely. For a start it is huge, but mostly it is impressive for the fact that the animals are almost arm’s length away from you. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration, but not by much. I was going to go on an elephant ride but the queue was too long. If only I’d known what was coming later – I would have jumped at the size of that queue! The animals are much what you would see anywhere, but the Singaporeans really know how to put on a show. I was cheering along with the rest of the crowd when the polar bear stood up and clapped.

The downside of the whole experience was the fricking night safari. Talk about tourist trap. We were herded – there’s no other word for it – down a walkway for 20 minutes to reach an ampitheatre for a “Creatures of the night” show. After being squashed in like sardines we got to see a few animals run out and eat things, while being exorted to cheer madly. A bit of a non event so we left to take in the rest of the night zoo. Big mistake – the queue for the tram (which I’d just paid $20 for) was indescribably long. It would have been another half hour wait and that was too much for my tired, aching feet. We took the bus and two trains back to our hotel where we watched The West Wing and promptly fell asleep.