#BirthdayWeekend: East Coast Park and Night Safari

As I have mentioned in my last #BirthdayWeekend post, Kevin is only visiting for the weekend, and we only have three whole days to wander around. For this day, we have two agendas lined up. 

First agenda: Cycling at East Coast Park

Since I moved to Singapore more than a year ago, Kevin has been going back and forth a couple of times from Manila to visit me. Thus, I think we have been to almost all the touristy places here. We decided to do something different this time round.

Both of us have been developing an interest in cycling recently, and he's been very keen to try cycling here because roads are much better than in Manila. Therefore, I brought him to East Coast Park, and because that is one of the only two biking spots I am familiar with. Haha. If you remember from my post before, this is where my friends and I went cycling a couple of months ago.

Anyway, we went on a Friday, and the usual (and only route) to East Coast Park is the 401 bus service from Bedok Bus Interchange. Much to our surprise (mostly mine), the 401 bus service doesn't run during weekdays. And with that, I started to get worried that the bicycle rental shops might be closed. I was so tensed on the way to ECP as we came all the way, and it might end up a total failure. Upon reaching the park, when we were walking going to where the rental shops are, all my worries went out of the window as we saw people riding bicycles which I was absolutely sure rented from the rental shop we are about to go to. Phew!

We rented the bicycles for 2 hours, and we got an hour free because they are having promotions. We cycled through the usual route — from East Coast Park to Marina Barrage, and back. Three hours is more than enough to finish the route. When we were back at ECP, we rested and hanged out for a while along the beach.

It was around 6pm when we were back home. We were super exhausted. Haha. But good thing we still have a couple of hours to recuperate before our next activity.

Second Agenda: Night Safari

Kevin requested for this as he said he hasn't been to a zoo for the longest time, and it is a unique experience. I've been there before when I was still a kid, but I don't remember anything about it anymore. Anyway, our ticket was the 21:15 admission. I couldn't be any more thankful to myself for booking a later time as I was having trouble getting up from bed because of our morning activity. Haha!

Unlike other zoos, Night Safari is explored mostly by riding a tram. It has commentary narrating and pointing out the animals as we go on the journey and giving out fascinating facts about them.

The animals in Night Safari are all nocturnal, thus, they are active at night. The whole place is very dark much like of an actual safari or rainforest. Visitors are not allowed to take any pictures with emitting light or flash (including the focus beams usually in DSLRs) as the animals are sensitive to light and we don't want to disturb them.

Aside from the tram tour, you can also explore the place on foot through the walking trails. I seriously was very scared when we were doing these walking trails as it really seemed like were inside a rainforest, and it's really dark. To make things worse, there are only a few people wandering as it is late already, so there are many times that we were alone in one spot! And also, bats are roaming around freely! Is it normal to be scared of them? Haha.

Anyway, it was so nice to see different animals, albeit some are sleeping, and some cannot be seen at all! Haha! My most favourite animal I've seen is the majestic Asian elephant called Chawang. The experience was nice and unique, although I expected a bit more. I think I still prefer the conventional zoos we have as we can really have a good view of the animals; yet for first timers, it is still a good experience, nevertheless.