River Safari

Wow.. another jewel on the crown of Singapore wildlife reserve.  I have been to Singapore Zoo many times before , every time i was wondered by the cleanliness and the way they are maintaining . I was really excited when the announcement came about the River Safari project some years back, even more excited when the Pandas from china arrived .

The River Safari consists of 'World's largest repositories' of river dwelling animals. The park is divided into 2 zones linked by bridge. The two zones are

1) Rivers of the world : This zone consists of animals from  seven rivers around the world. The rivers includes      
   a) Mississippi River
  The beavers were not moving at all. We thought they were sleeping.. I have never seen one before.

Paddle Fish 

Alligator Gar

         b) Mekong River

Mekong Cat Fish

 

Arowana

         c) Ganges River

This are was very crowded and i was not able to take any good pictures.. but the crocodile looked awesome.

         d) Nile River

Giraffe Cat fish

         e) Congo River

Giant Buffer fish

         f) Murray River

          This area was also crowded not able to take pictures.. in fact very tough for us to even look through the tanks.

         g) Yangtze River

Yangtze crocodile

After going through these seven river comes the main attraction of the River Safari - the Pandas . What a lovely creatures.. I thought Pandas are slow moving and lazy animals. yes they are lazy but they are moving faster than i expected.

Giant Panda Forest:

Red Panda

Always eating...

There are two giant pandas there , they are Kai kai and Jia Jia .They are put under the simulated natural climate and this bio-dome is kept an cool 18 - 22 degree Celsius .  Singapore Post released a set of stamps in honour these two lovely pandas . I have the stamps too.!

2)Wild Amazonia

    This zone consists of
   a) Amazon River Quest : This is a boat ride which will take around 30-40 minutes.Here we can see close to 30 animal species. It was a wonderful experience .  For more details click here.

  b) Squirrel Monkey Forest :

       c)Amazon Flooded Forest:

Ghost Fish

Electric Eel

Red Bellied Piranha

Manatees..

 

Ray Fish..

Top View of the Ocenarium

View from outside..

   This is the world's largest fresh water aquarium !! Awesome... specially the Manatees ....!! For more details click here. 

Over all a great experience! Lovely way to spend 2-4 hours and be mesmerised by these wonderful creatures.  Don't forget to take water bottles as there are no free water taps as in zoo.

  

Snail Watching - 3

I really do not know how i got interested in Snails. Over these 3 years i started love these beautiful little creatures. Last week, when i was jogging  i found these wonderful scenes.These scenes were the REAL mating scenes not my previous post ( Snail Watching-2). When i did research on Snails mating procedures, i was really fascinated .
Some interesting information about Snails:
- Snails are gastropods (belly foot), use stomach for moving.
- Snails are hermaphrodites (means they have both male and female organs).But there are exceptions.
- Snails are considered sexually matured in one year time.
- Mating rituals can go for more than 12 hours sometime(!!)
- Fertilize the each other eggs after the mating.
- Snails can carry upto 100 eggs.

When i started taking picture,that was for almost 10 to 15 minutes, there was no moment.Never seen anything like that before, i stopped jogging and was filled with some kind of strange feeling.

I do not know what species these snails belongs to, i believe these are garden snails(??) .And when i researched about mating rituals i found that some snails are dioecious i,e separate sexes. So i think what i saw was mating between male and female (not sure).

I have seen the same thing as in the below video but i did not touch it( i should say that i was scared to disturb them!).

Click here Apple Snails mating info
More info about how snail reproduce

The Art of the Brick

My first visit to ArtScience Museum @ MarinaBaySands was an unforgettable one , thanks to "The Art of the Brick" exhibition.  Many times in newspaper i saw the advertisement of this show but i never showed any interest to it. But when i saw big advertisement board at MarinaBaySands i got little interest and checked what was this show about.

Yellow-Nathan's most famous work

Thanks to a free ticket, i was bit hesitant first then thought anyhow it was free , let me go and check. Thank God! I would have missed a great piece(s) of art. I was surprised to see all the intrinsic sculptures designed and built using LEGO bricks. The sculptor is Nathan Sawaya, his life is an example of how one can make hobby or interest to something profitable ,even as business.

Swimming half - Nathan allows us to imagine the remaining half

Simply amazing to see the transformation of the little bricks to something awesome.The moment i went inside the 4th floor where the exhibition is being held i was asked by photographer to stand before the the expo advertisement and she took some photos of me in various angles.It happens everywhere in Singapore.The museum is also providing guide for group of visitors.

Rain:

Hands -(Not sure about name)

Peace by Pieces

Mask

Untitled

Hanging On the Edge

Disintegration

Thinking Man

Dinosaur

ArtScience Museum

 

The Writer

Skulls (in different colors)

Pantheon

Untitled

Music (not sure about the name)

Different Heads(forgot the names)

Miscellaneous Men (forgot the names)

Man & Woman(Romance)

Some more men

Elevation

Globe

Apples

Some more

and more

 Personalities (Hitchcock,Hendrix etc)

At last

Thats me..

There was an ipad where we can take picture of us and brickcature(not sure about name and spelling ).

Overall, i had great time watching and taking picture of these wonderful work by Nathan.

Quotes by Nathan was painted everywhere. Check those below