One of the issues that comes with going to bed really early is that you are awake crazy early as well. I was awake for the first time around 01:00. Graham was thankfully fast asleep. I read for a while and then I started to feel tired again. I went back to sleep. Around 04:00, we were both awake for a bit. We talked about our plans for the day and then we both fell asleep again. When we woke up again just before 6, we got up and ready. Then we headed downstairs for breakfast.
Breakfast at the Holiday Inn Singapore Atrium is a buffet. The hotel is halal certified, which means that there is no pork. Sausages and bacon were chicken and turkey, respectively. I am not a huge fan of either, but I definitely did not go hungry. There was a wide variety of hot and cold dishes with a mix of Chinese, Indian and international dishes. Graham started with cold cuts and salad. He then had a churro-like pastry that he remembered from his childhood in Singapore. Unlike churros, this is not sweet. I tried this later in the trip and it was not my thing. He also had fried egg on toast and oatmeal. We both had coffee. I also had what they called a fruit punch juice. This was a far cry from what is called fruit punch in the USA and was delicious. I started with some tinned longans and pears. I had first come across longans when we first sailed out of Shanghai. Longans are part of the same family as lychees but have a more subtle flavour. I love them both. Lychees are easier to come by in the UK than longans are, and I was therefore delighted to find them on the buffet. I also had some fresh dragon fruit and a plum. I was delighted when I spotted soup noodles, but they were seafood based. I passed. Instead, I had congee with fried shallots and onion that I flavoured with some soy sauce. This hit the spot.
After breakfast, we quickly went downstairs to reception. The hotel has a scheme where you can opt out of daily housekeeping in exchange for extra loyalty points. This was a win win situation for us. We rather won’t be bothered by somebody every day and the extra loyalty points were a nice bonus. If stated to put the Greener Stays door sign out to opt in, but we did not have one in the room. I figured that they would have them at reception. That was not the case, but the person we spoke to arranged to have one delivered to our room.
With this taken care of, we went back to our room. Our door sign arrived shortly after we did. I put this up and then I unpacked. Graham had unpacked the previous day while I was sleeping. I had bought two different kinds of bracelets that were meant to be natural insect repellents. We had used insect repellent with Deet when we went to Singapore in 2019, but as you are not allowed to put this on underneath clothes, this just meant that I got bitten through the clothes. The bracelets had a lot of great reviews, and I also got some natural spray insect repellent for good measure. I put one bracelet on my wrist and one on the ankle. I also purchased a photo pass for the day and two different feeding sessions online. Then I was ready to go.
We decided to take a Grab that morning for the sheer convenience. Our destination that day was off the beaten track with the closest MRT station still requiring a bus ride to get to our destination. Add to this that feeding sessions meant that we were on a bit of a timetable, and it just seemed more sensible to go by Grab. This time there was no confusion about where we were. We had gone down earlier than we strictly needed to as we were still at the tail end of rush hour, and I was not sure how soon a car would arrive. A driver was assigned almost straightaway, and I quoted me a waiting time of approximately 6 minutes. I could see on the app that the driver was dropping somebody off nearby and then he came to get us. We had a nice clear run. It was also for the most part an interesting route. We went past the botanical gardens and drove along a short part of the famous Orchard Road corridor. We even got quite close to where Graham used to live as a child. Graham was surprised how far out we were going. He commented that we were nearly at the border crossing with Malaysia.
Our destination that day was Bird Paradise. In 2019, we visited Jurong Bird Park. They were getting ready to move to their new home. Some areas were already closed in the preparation for the move, which should have been imminent. However, then the pandemic happened and ultimately Bird Paradise did not open until May 2023. Bird Paradise joined three existing parks near the Upper Seletar Reservoir. Singapore Zoo had been in that location since 1973 and was joined by Night Safari in 1994 and by River Wonders in 2012. This original complex is now called Mandai Wildlife East. This is also home to the Mandai Boardwalk, which is a boardwalk along the edges of River Wonders and Singapore Zoo, which provides views over the Upper Seletar Reservoir. This is free to visit. There is also Curiosity Cove, which is an indoor play centre that comes at a charge and Colugo Camp, which offers glamping. Mandai Wildlife West is the newer part of this complex. This is home to Bird Paradise and also Rainforest Wild. Rainforest Wild is ultimately supposed to be a two-part adventure. Rainforest Wild Asia opened in March 2025, and Rainforest Wild Africa is still under construction.
We pulled up in a multistorey car park and followed the signs. This led us to multiple glass doors. As we got there quite early, I thought that maybe they were not open yet. However, I then saw people on the other side and realised that there are touch screen buttons next to the doors. We went in and came to an area with a waterfall and escalators up to the next level. There your turned either left or right depending on which park you wanted to go to. On the way to the actual park entrance were a number of restaurants, but they were still closed. Then we came to the entrance plaza. There was an interesting sculpture in this area as well as a display highlightingthe history of Jurong Bird Park. The ticket office was still closed when we got there. They only opened at 09:00. We did have our first bird sighting while we were waiting for the ticket office to open. There was a zebra dove hanging out near where we were standing. This was the cutest thing.
The ticket office opened just before 09:00. We headed there and were advised that only Singapore residents can buy tickets there. For tourists, they had ticket machines just outside the ticket office. They looked like a card reader had been glued to a smartphone and their use was not exactly intuitive. Eventually we got our tickets and headed to the entrance. There were photographers in this area and offered to take photos. I mentioned that I had pre-purchased the photo pass, she took us to two more photo spots. She explained to get a photo card every time we have a photo taken and then pointed out the shop where we needed to take this at the end of the day.
With the photos taken care of, we headed towards our first stop of the day, which was Rwanda Nyungwe Forest Heart of Africa. To our surprise, we had to go up some escalators to reach this. Heart of Africa is the largest aviary. It consists various of suspension bridges and elevated walkways meaning that you can see birds from the forest floor all the way to the treetops. The set up is amazing. When we came up the escalator, we first came to an airconditioned room with some seating. There was some information about the birds that we were about to encounter and their natural habitats. I thought this was extremely well done and also offered a welcome respite from the heat outside. Heart of Africa is one of four areas that offers feeding sessions. In Heart of Africa, you can feed the starlings. I had prebooked the 10:00 feeding. When we walked into the aviary, we could not see anything. I am never quite sure if this is because birds are keeping a low profile until they are convinced that we pose no threat or if our eyes need to adjust. It did not take long until we saw some birds, however. The first bird that we spotted was an African Grey Parrot. This was pretty cool. Soon there were all kinds of birds including some starlings and different kinds of doves.
I went to check where I needed to go for the feeding. This was the perfect spot to be as the birds knew what was coming and were hanging around. When the feeding time approached, I was the only person there. I was given a dish on a stick that contained mealworms. I was asked to sit down on a bench in an area that had been roped off. Graham was invited to join me. I was advised that I could feed any bird in the aviary apart from the African Grey Parrots and the assorted hornbills. I just thought to myself that one of them landed on the dish, I would most certainly not argue with them. Fortunately, the only birds that came to visit were starlings. There was a photographer in the area, and I got some really nice photos. By the time the other people who had booked the feeding had arrived, I was done. We stayed in this aviary a little longer and then we moved on.
At the old Jurong Bird Park, there were two free flight walkthrough aviaries when we visited in 2019. There had been an additional one, but that had already been closed down ahead of the move that was planned for 2020. The rest of the park where either wetlands or individual aviaries, which were essentially large cages. I was delighted when I realised that essentially all the habitats at Bird Paradise were free flight walkthrough aviaries. Kuok Group Wings of Asia was one of the smaller aviaries. The theming of this was amazing. It replicates a Balinese or Indonesian landscape, with dense trees, bamboo, and simulated rice terraces. Like Heart of Africa, Wings of Asia is on different levels so that you observe the different species that call this area home in their natural habitat. This area was home to mainly birds that live on or near the water like ducks, geese, herons, and pelicans. We did however also see Myna birds and a hornbill.
From Wings of Asia, a bridge was leading to Mysterious Papua. This was the aviary that we spent the most time in. It also had some amazing theming with buildings styled after the huts of the Papuan Korowai people, and viewing galleries inspired by Sepik houses. The birds in this area are native to the coastal, tropical forests of Papua New Guinea, with some species from Northern Australia and other nearby islands. Graham made a friend there. There was a lorikeet that kept following Graham. There were all kinds of colourful pigeons in this area. The most interesting bird in this area is the Southern cassowary, which is essentially a living dinosaur.
Our next destination was Lory Loft as I had my second feeding of the day booked there. However, we took a wrong turn and landed outside Shaw Foundation Australian Outback. We did not have time to check this out at this moment and time and backtracked through Mysterious Papua to Lory Loft. Despite the detour, we still arrived in plenty of time before the feeding. There were some cockatoos in a tree near a bench, and we decided to sit down and enjoy their company.
We could see from where we were sitting where they were setting up for the feeding. Once it looked that they were ready, I headed over. They checked booking confirmations and gave out numbered tags. We then lined up. A short while later, they called small groups at the time. When it was my turn, everybody in the group was given a dish with nectar. We were advised if the birds were not interested, to go down further down the path as far as the bridge. It did not take long until I had a friend. There was a roaming photographer as well. Once the first bird lost interest in me, I moved further along the path. The birds were not as sociable as they had been at Jurong Bird Park. This had its positive aspects though. The lorikeets at Jurong Bird Park totally destroyed my gel nails. This time round, they had no interest in my nails. When all my nectar was gone, I handed my dish in, and they directed me towards the exit from the bridge. I am not sure where this would have led as when I mentioned that my husband was waiting for me at the top of the path, they let me head back that way. Once I had been reunited with Graham, we pushed on.
Our plan had been to continue in a linear fashion to see the three aviaries that were in that direction and then head back towards the entrance to visit Shaw Foundation Australian Outback, Ocean Network Express Penguin Cove, and Winged Sanctuary on the way out. There was just one little flaw with that plan. I needed the bathroom and a quick look on the map showed that there were no bathrooms in that direction. The closest bathroom was between Mysterious Papua and Australian Outback. We backtracked and used the bathroom. We figured as we were already there, we may as well check out Australian Outback.
This area was a lot different from the aviaries we had seen so far. Whereas the other aviaries had all kinds of dense foliage, this mainly open grassland with a few trees dotted around. For all the open space, some animals still managed to hide from us. Supposedly there were wallabies in this area, but we never saw them. We saw plenty of interesting birds though like black cockatoos. I was fascinated by the magpie geese, which did not behave very goose-like, but were sitting up trees, on fences and the feeders.
Like most of the aviaries we had visited up to this point, Australian Outback was on multiple levels. However, what was different is that there was an exit on the ground level. This led to Penguin Cove. Penguin Cove is again an area on multiple levels. On the top level, there is information about the habitat and the different penguins that live there. This then leads to the first observation area where you can observe the penguins on land. There was also a café and shop in this area. We decided to have a bit of downtime and get a drink. Graham had some apple juice and a fruit parfait as a snack. I was not hungry, but had some grape Fanta, which came in souvenir cup. We even had some entertainment while we enjoyed out downtime. There was a rockhopper penguin who could not work out how to get in the water. This penguin jumped from rock to rock, looked at the water, circled back and started this all over again. Ironically, there was a ramp right behind the penguin. I wonder if he or she is still going round in circles.
We had a quick look at the lower level of Penguin Cove where there was a viewing area that allowed to observe the penguins underwater. Then we backtracked to where we had left off to check out the remaining aviaries. When we went through Mysterious Papua, one of the animal care staff approached me to check if I was doing the Southern cassowary feeding session. He recognized me from the two feeding sessions that I had done in the morning. I told him that I was not, and he tried to encourage me to sign up. I was not interested in this, and we moved on. When we went through Lory Loft, we could hear loud talking. This was a bit surprising as there were very few people there and it was most certainly none of them. It turned out that the talking came from a tree full of lorikeets. This was a definite bonus.
We moved on to Songs of the Forest. Songs of the Forest features vulnerable, threatened, and endangered songbirds of Southeast Asia. Jurong Bird Park was the first park who managed to breed the straw-headed bulbul in captivity. Bird Paradise is carrying on this legacy and are now part of an international breeding programme. There were also some birds in there that I would not classify as songbirds like for instance Pesquet’s Parrot and Sri Lankan junglefowl, but they were still fascinating to see. After we had enjoyed the company of the different birds in that aviary, we decided to have a little bit downtime in the area between this and the next aviary. It was nice to spend some time in air-conditioned bliss. The theme of this area was bird migration, which was absolutely fascinating. Once we had cooled down a little, we moved on to the next aviary.
Peace was disrupted when we reached the next aviary, which was Amazonian Jewels. There was a helicopter hovering overhead which was freaking out the birds in this aviary, but even more so in the adjacent aviary. There was a bunch of pink birds next door that suddenly took off and settled in a tree. We initially thought that they were flamingos. Amazonian Jewels replicates the rainforests of Central and South America and the Caribbean, featuring species such as the cock-of-the-rock, curassows, toucans, parakeets, and parrots. I don’t think we really did that aviary justice as we were intrigued about the “flamingo tree” next door and left relatively quickly.
The final walkthrough aviary was Hong Leong Foundation Crimson Wetlands. At least we stayed in the same part of the world as Crimson Wetlands recreates the wetland habitats of South America and the Caribbean. The centre piece is huge waterfall with a large pool. There are also a number of other ponds in this aviary. Although there are indeed flamingos in this area, the birds up the tree were actually scarlet ibis and roseate spoonbills. It was still a sight to behold. However, this kind of paled when we came to the waterfall and there were a bunch of free flying scarlet macaws. There were even more on another tree. This was something very special. There were also some hyacinth macaws, but they were not very active. Was surprised me considering how recently Bird Paradise had opened was that there was already major refurbishment going on in this area.
We had originally pondered visiting one of the smaller parks, River Wonders, on the same day. However, we had taken our time exploring Bird Paradise and towards the end of the visit, we both felt we were done. We decided to take the internal tram from the Central Plaza back to the entrance area. The maps did not accurately represent where the trams were actually leaving from. Eventually we did find the right spot and a tram was just ready to leave. We got on and a minute later, we were on our way.
There was one more area to explore near the entrance, which was Winged Sanctuary. Winged Sanctuary houses the park’s collection of over twenty species of hornbills and other endangered tropical birds, such as the Palawan peacock-pheasant and the Philippine eagle. The area consists of tall and densely planted steel-mesh screen aviaries. Because of all the plants, you could not actually see the birds. I absolutely understand why they did this, but it kind of defeats the purpose of having these rare birds in a public area if you cannot actually see them anyway.
We then headed towards the exit. On the way, we stopped by the main gift shop so that I could sort out my photo pass photos. This was the most cumbersome process I have ever encountered. This was surprising considering that all the photo cards had a QR code. Surely, it would be easy to just scan and download them especially as the confirmation for the photo pass had a QR code as well. The way it worked is that they had to scan all the QR codes into a temporary account, which then created a code. Supposedly they are meant to give you this code. However, they just told me to go to their website and enter the code. It prompted me to create an account, which I did. The person dealing with this kept telling me there was no need to create an account, but I am glad that I ignored her as before I could download the photos, my phone randomly closed the browser, and I would have lost all my photos without the account. As it was, I was just able to log in and retrieve the photos this way.
I had originally planned to take a Grab in both directions, but we had seen the bus stop for the shuttle service in the morning, and this was right where we would come out. We decided to check out the public transport option. We were on no timetable, and I was curious how this worked. The answer to this was that it is really easy. Just as we got to the bus stop, the shuttle to the closest MRT station pulled in. There is a charge of 2.5 Singapore Dollars per person, but that seemed more than fair. The shuttle then headed straight to the MRT Station. It took about 20 minutes, but the bus was airconditioned and quite comfortable. At the other end, it stopped right by the station entrance. As we got to the platform, the train just pulled in. We got to our interchange station, which was Orchard Road, surprisingly quickly. The interchange was also really easy and again, a train was just pulling in once we got to our platform. Then it was just two stops to our local stop. This really could not have been any easier and was a far cry from getting to Jurong Bird Park.
We were not quite ready to head back to the hotel. First, we needed some dinner. In 2019, one of the hotel staff recommended the Zion Riverside Food Centre to us. This is the closest hawker centre to the hotel. Unfortunately, when we got there in 2019, it was closed for deep cleaning. We never got back there, and this was high on the list for this time. I did check if they were open ahead of time. We were in luck. This was the second smallest hawker centre we visited. A lot of stalls were already closed for the day as we arrived well after the lunch rush. Still, we were definitely not about to go hungry.
We had learned in 2019, the best way to eat at a hawker centre is to get a variety of dishes and just share them. This is the approach we took. I got a large portion of roast pork and char sui with rice. This was lovely, but we still had room for some more food. I went to a different stall and ordered some pork and leek dumplings and some pan-fried dumplings. Those were the freshest dumplings I ever had. One of the people at this stall rolled out the dough while I was watching and then added to filling before steaming one batch and frying the other. They were delicious. Unfortunately, my eyes were ever so slightly bigger than our stomachs. We had most of them but were not quite able to finish them. Once we had finished with the food, I got us something to drink. This was where I discovered my love for freshly squeezed juices. I got a mango juice for Graham and a guava juice for me. The guava juice was a bit of a surprise. I had never had fresh guava juice and only ever had come across pink guava. This juice was made from white guava. This was not as sweet as I had expected and had quite a tangy flavour. I did really enjoy it though.
We had timed this perfectly. While I was getting our first dish, the heavens opened. We were in the dry and did not mind. Graham assured me that this would blow over and even gave me a time when this would stop. He was scarily accurate. By the time we were done and cleared our trays away, the rain had stopped. We got back to the hotel without getting wet. We both had a quick shower and then we settled down for an early night.
Dolphingirl’s Travels 
Leave a comment