A work day for Larry, a play day for Eileen. Today was Jurong Bird Park.

I opted to take a Uber ride to the bird park, which is 18.6 km (11.5 miles) away from our hotel.

The bird park is quite large. It has special areas for each category of birds — some in the open (like shore birds), some in aviaries viewed from the outside (parrots, hornbills, toucans, etc.), some in aviaries you get to go inside — quite large and quite high (lories, waterfall aviary). It’s a little hard to seeing birds in captivity, but on the other hand, this park is doing an important job in educating and in providing sanctuary to birds in danger of extinction through habitat destruction and capture for the pet trade.

There are also shows and feedings. I went to the birds of prey and parrot/toucan/hornbill shows. How do I feel about trained birds? Well, birds of prey (e.g. falcons) have been trained for centuries, and people do train parrots, and the birds seem to be treated well. And I did enjoy the shows.

Juvenile Sea Eagle

Brahminy Kite

Saddle-billed Stork, Gray-crowned Crane left and right top, stork?, Great Hornbill

Scheepmaker’s Crowned Pigeon

Lories in love

Netting in the huge Waterfall Aviary

I headed home by bus and MRT, quite easy, but a long ride.

I then walked around Clarke Quay, which we really hadn’t done except to walk to Fort Canning on the first day. It’s quite nice with old warehouse areas converted to lots of restaurants, walking bridges across the river, bumboats (the Singapore river cruisers) going up and down the river, etc.

After Larry got back from work, we again headed up to the roof to drink some wine (we did that the day before as well), and then headed to Bayang, a Balinese Indonesian restaurant — really good! Larry had lamb and I had crispy duck.

October 20, 2015

Eileen Samberg