Since the Singapore Zoo was so spectacular on our last trip, we decided to visit the Singapore River Safari this trip. It is a new exhibit, operated by the same group that runs the zoo. Everything was decked out for Chinese New Year. Beautiful!
Many photo opportunities! We had to take advantage, of course.
They also have a panda exhibit at this park. (But, this was the most active panda we saw!)
The decorative entrance was probably the best thing about this park!
There was a boat ride through one of the areas, called Amazon River Quest. The advertising was a bit misleading though. They really make it look amazing, which it was not. There were different animal pens to view from the (7 minute) boat ride. This is the picture from their advertising….
This is the actual boat ride. See any difference?
There were covered walkways throughout the entire park which were nice, rain or shine.
One of the two panda bears.
There were lots of interactive exhibits. The girls liked how this statue showed the size of an adult and a baby panda.
The premise of the park is of showing the different river ecosystems of the world. Amazon, Mississippi, Nile, etc.
The manatee tank was pretty cool.
We loved this open monkey enclosure, as well. It’s like you enter the monkey’s cage with them.
But, our overall experience, was that it was not worth the money. We spent only 2 hours and saw absolutely everything. 85 dollars later we still needed an activity for the rest of the day. So, we went to Chinatown for lunch.
We decided to eat in a place that was packed, as a guide to quality. Oddly enough, it ended up being the exact place we ate last trip, with the amazing dim sum. We enjoyed it again! We got an egg tart from a street bakery afterwards. Ella chose a banana tart, which was basically like banana bread cooked in a pastry crust. The rest of us got the egg tart, a custard-like filling in a pastry crust. Can’t go wrong there!
Next up was the Orchard Road district of Singapore. This is an area of very fancy and upscale shopping. There were lots of beautiful decorations up for Chinese New Year. 2014, the year of the horse.
I thought this street side McDonald’s was great. It was across from the regular McD’s and was just a small, accessible, drink/dessert station. Brilliant! 
We kept noticing large crowds of people surrounding these ice cream carts. Upon closer inspection people were carrying away bread wrapped ice cream! I had to try one. 
There are some interesting flavors here, but the girls made me choose mint chip.
The man cut off a slab of ice cream from the carton, and literally wrapped it in a piece of “Wonder” type bread.
This is literally an ice cream sandwich! Haha! It was interesting. Not bad, but I don’t know that I will try it at home anytime soon.
As we walked back to our hotel from the train station, we saw these monkeys jump on to the trash can, open the lid (with ease!), tip the can over and start rummaging through the trash. What a mess! We had been warned that the monkey’s can be very aggressive, so we did not stick around long, but it was fun to see. 
And so concluded our trip, we thought……
So interesting. Thanks for posting.