river safari

*back dated entry*

couple of months ago, we signed up for the NUS welfare thing to ballot for free tickets to river safari & luck for us, we managed to get 4 free tickets!!!! so me, my bf went down to river safari went down with 2 of our lab mates since the rest were not free.... for those who are staying in the west, i recommend you all to go to choa chu kang station to take 927, it takes about 15-20min to reach zoo for a smooth traffic.... for those who are staying in the north then can take 138 from ang mo kio... before we knew about bus 927, we used to take train from clementi to ang mo kio to take bus 138, somemore there was no circle line during those time, can you imagined how much time we spent on travelling....

bus stop at zoo

i also recommend for those who intend to stay in the zoo or river safari for the whole day to bring your own food to picnic cause there is really very limited choices of food there... the cheapest option will be KFC at the entrance but it is still like $2+ more than what you can find outside.... personally i will always opt for picnic but today i dont have time to prepare food & we wont stay there for so long so we just had KFC for lunch prior to entering river safari

river safari entrance

halloween signboards

since now is oct, so there is halloween theme but we are not there during the specific dates so we didnt see much halloween decorations.... & the admission tickets to river safari DOES NOT include the boat ride so you have to purchase a separate ticket... & according to my friend you need to book it early before it ran out...

amazon quest tickets

now there are 2 boat rides, the amazon quest & river quest.... both are at $5 each.... the river cruise seem more relaxing but you will be seeing more scenery than specific animal attractions.....

main entrance

river safari map

i would say river safari is really pretty small compared to the zoo, you can actually finished everything in less than 2hr unless you like to camp at specific exhibitions....  there are 2 sides which are connected at the main entrance & the bridge at the end.... i would say river safari is actually just part of what you will see in the zoo & the "main" attraction will probably be the pandas... personally i am not a fan of them so i dont really see the need to purposely go to river safari, zoo is still my favourite =)

inside river safari

normally people will start the trail on the left but we started on the right first since we want to reach the river safari station before the allocated time slot... similar to the SEA aquarium, there are also huge fish tanks in river safari but lesser compared to former... it is located on the right of the main entrance....

otters

more otters

cute otter baby

stingray

fishes

dugong swimming upsize down

BIG fish tank

halloween  decoration along the walkway

since we are ahead of schedule, we went to see the panda first

interesting fact: panda actually has 6 digits & they are orientated like human, thats pretty cool... but i prefer red panda than normal panda... they look so much cuter!!!

red panda

we went in around 1+ to 2pm so i think it is the nap time for them so they are sleeping happily on the branch... after enjoying the aircon at panda exhibition, we went to queue for our boat ride

river cruise boat

river cruise entrance

amazon river quest entrance

queuing for the boat ride

the boat

the amazon quest ride is actually like those rides inside USS or disneyland, you only get the glimpse passed those exhibitions... & again we went at the wrong timing, is afternoon so most of the animals are napping & hiding under some shelter so we couldnt see most of the animals....

some monkey & i can only see the fur

tapir

tapir? i not sure though

couldnt see any tamarin

capybara enjoying their dip

jaguars hiding under the shade

flamingo

red birds

so basically that's almost all the animals you will see during the the amazon quest... i actually doubt the ride has 10min since like we just breeze through everything.... after the ride, we went to the panda cafe for tea break since we gotten $20 food voucher together with the free tickets

panda cafe

even the chairs has panda design

the famous panda bun

there are 2 flavours to the panda buns, chocolate & red bean.... chocolate is definitely better... mango pudding is ok but taste more like mango mousse... but the gyoza is like omg tough... the skin is like made of plastic... so that's a no no..... after the tea break, we continued with the other exhibits...

another big fish tank

some amazon birds

blue fishes

giant salamander

 this salamander is amazing... if you didnt look carefully at the tank, i would have missed it.... another amazing thing is the name.... 娃娃鱼?? like which part of it look like a doll or something petite???

turtle

when we were walking along the exhibits we saw turtle & alligator being put in the same tank, we were really surprised but after seeing this sign board then we understood why.... haha.... screw you alligator!!!

basically that's all to the river safari... of cause i didnt take photo of all the exhibits but more or less everything is here.... lets end this post with the cute red panda soft toy =)

red panda soft toy