Today we had a tour to the Jurong Bird Park. Our guide must be Singapore's greatest booster: he told us about all the wonderful things to be found in Singapore. He also gave us a lot of history, from a boosterish slant, but probably reasonably accurate. One thing he said that was surprising to us was that Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia in 1970, and pretty much had to pull itself up by its bootstraps starting then. If so, it’s pulled itself up pretty far. It is now the financial center of Southeast Asia (if not the entire Pacific region), and its port is one of the busiest in the world.

The Jurong Bird Park is pretty amazing. The guide told us that we only had time to hit the highlights, because it would take a full day to see the whole park, and he was right. So we rode the monorail to the area where they had the hornbills, the birds of prey, and a large aviary full of lorikeets. These lorikeets are pretty tame, and you can get your picture taken with one or two on your shoulder, but I preferred to take my own pictures.

We then got back on the monorail to go to the African Waterfall section. The waterfall is nice, and there are a lot of birds swimming/flying free around there. They have a bunch of feeders out to attract birds, and I got some good pictures there, too. The guide wanted us to be sure to see the Birds n Buddies show at 11:00. On the way, he took us past the area with flightless birds, like rheas, ostriches, emus and cassowaries. These guys can get up close and personal, although they are safely in their enclosure and we are safely out.  

 I wasn’t sure about the Birds n Buddies show, but I went because 1) the guide really, really wanted us to, and 2) I figured I could leave and go see more birds if it was bad. But it was amazing! I know the birds have been trained, but they didn’t ACT trained, they acted like they enjoyed the show as much as the audience. The show is apparently very popular with the young crowd in Singapore; there were several school groups in the audience. I decided to sit down in front to get good pictures, and it was a good move. The very first thing that happens is this troupe of flamingoes comes dancing out onto the stage, followed by the MC, who has a cockatiel on his arm. He welcomes the crowd and says part of the show is to have birds fly low over the audience. He asks if everyone wants to see the birds fly over them and all the kids yell Yes! So then the MC says there are a couple of rules you have to follow: do not stand up, and do not put up your arms or try to grab the birds. He explains that he doesn’t want either the birds or the people to get hurt. So after all the kids (and adults) promise they won’t stand up or try to grab the birds, he has the cockatiel fly low over the crowd up to a handler in the back. After that, the cockatiel flies back to the stage.

The entire show was a combination of show business (they had bird characters that danced around and delivered important messages about caring for the environment), spectacular birds doing fun things (flying over the crowd, doing a Survivor-type challenge with balls and a hollow log), and interesting birds up close. At the end of the show, they had about 20 parrots lined up along the fence at the front of the stage, and the MC invited the kids to come for a close look, although he warned them not to stick their fingers near the parrots because the birds would treat the fingers as French fries.

After the show we had some time to see more birds (and take more photographs), including the penguins. I kept watching one little guy who was swimming along on his stomach and would suddenly roll on his back and do the backstroke until he rolled back onto his stomach again.    I also got some spectacular pictures of the flamingoes and pelicans in their lagoon. I have heard that the Singapore zoo is world class, but I think the Jurong Bird Park is the best of its kind I have seen.

On the way back to the ship, the guide had the bus driver stop so we could get pictures of the spectacular walkway over the highway that is part of a 15 kilometer system of pathways and bridges that connect the parks in Singapore so that people can walk the entire way without worrying about traffic crossing the roads. I also got another picture of a Hindu temple with all its statues of gods and   goddesses.

But we did not have time to see the Singapore zoo, or ride the cable cars to Sendoza Island, or see the Merlion statue or visit the acquarium, or visit the Night Zoo (for nocturnal species) or go to any of the museums or parks in the city. Singapore is worth a week or two, I think.