Singapore Trip: Visit to Jurong Bird Park

Allot a whole day for this attraction, particularly when with small kids. The Bird Park is huge and since you really can't hurry kids when going from one section to the next, giving yourself more time for the park will allow you to enjoy the birds better.

We were at the Bird Park from about 11am to 5pm and that was not enough time to take in all of the birds available for viewing. Still, we made the best of the time we had and the four of us had fun.

We got a combo ticket (the Bird Park and the Night Safari) although there is still another combo ticket which includes the Singapore Zoo. For the Bird Park and the Night Safari, adults are charged 25 singapore dollars (or about P825 the last I checked)while childred aged 3-12 are charged half that amount.

What can you do at the Bird Park? You can view a wide variety of birds like the waddling and swimming penguins at the Penguin Parade; the Snowy Owl in the World of Darkness; the colorful lories at the Lory Loft, and for Filipinos, you will even see the Luzon bleeding heart pigeon (yes, it has a bright red spot right in the middle of its chest)in the Birds of Asia. The various birds are too numerous to mention and you may want to take the Panorail, a rail ride which goes around the park so you can see from above the different sections which you may no longer have the energy to walk to. There are strollers for rent by the way. You pay a fee of 5 singapore dollars and give a refundable deposit of another 5 sing dollars.

We had lunch at the Flamingo Cafe where you can enjoy your food while viewing flamingoes, what else? Don't remember much now about what we ate. What I do remember is that we met some Filipinos working in the cafe. They were HRM students taking their practicum in Singapore for about a year. You could hear Filipino being spoken in the background and we also had someone to take our family pic. :-)

There's an All-Star Bird Show at 11am and at 3pm. We caught the 3pm show which runs for about 30 minutes. Prior to the start of the show, kids can have their photos taken with the birds for a donation of 10 singapore dollars. We enjoyed the show a lot. I've seen quite a lot of bird shows (in the US, in KL, in the Philippines, etc.) and I think this must be the best of the lot. There are the usual tricks of playing ball, dancing, catching fruit thrown up in the air, etc. In this show though, I particularly enjoyed the two birds which talked (in Chinese, even!) and which mimicked the sounds of a cat, a dog, a person laughing, and crying (complete with papa, mama...). There is also that component in the show where they teach the audience to be more careful with the environment by always reminding us to : "Reduce, reuse, recycle..."

It is hot at the Bird Park so make sure to bring caps for all -- which we did, thankfully. When in Singapore with kids, visit the Jurong Bird Park -- time really flies there as you have fun. :-)

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