Zoo Excursion!

Hello again! I'm so excited to share with you some pictures from my recent class field trip! We got to go to the Zoo -- yippee-doodle!

Welcome to the Singapore Zoo! We were so excited when we saw it come into view. Our teacher gave out excursion booklets for us to fill in while we were there.

There were dozens of people queuing up to pay for their admission, or buy tickets for animal shows, and tram and ferry rides.

Here I am standing near the ticket booth, waiting to go in with my class. It was pretty sunny that day (like every day here in Singapore!!!), so I decided to put on my hat.

We saw the parrots first. The parrot is also known as a psittacine. There are more than 370 parrot species living in tropical and subtropical areas, including Macaws, Amazons, lorikeets and cockatoos. All parrots have strong, curved bills, and clawed zygodactyl feet (that means two toes facing forward and two facing back).

Parrots mainly eat seeds, nuts, fruit, nectar and other plant material. Sometimes they eat animals as well. Did you know that parrots are one of the most intelligent birds in the world? They can also see many unusual colours that the human eye cannot see -- they can see parts of the ultraviolet end of the spectrum! Unfortunately, some parrot species are highly endangered :(

After the parrots, we went to look at the otters, but they were swimming so fast that I couldn't take a decent picture of them. I did manage to take this one of a proboscis monkey though! Proboscis monkeys are one of the largest monkey species. The male has a pretty large nose! Proboscis monkeys are found exclusively in the rainforests of Borneo (well, in zoos too), and eat fruits, leaves, flowers, seeds and sometimes insects. They usually live in groups, and communicate by honking, snarling and even roaring! Did you know that the proboscis monkey has webbed feet and is a very good swimmer? Sadly, it is extremely threatened in its natural environment because of deforestation.

Here is cute little sea turtle. I'm not sure, but I think he (she?) might be an Atlantic ridley sea turtle. He is diving down to pick at something on the floor, maybe some algae or seaweed.

Here is an adorable little squirrel we saw sitting on a little log. He was actually nibbling on a cute little acorn. Before I could snap another picture, he scampered away to a nearby tree, out of sight.

Here are two crocodiles. As you can see, one is dead and one is alive. Obviously, this one is quite alive. Crocodiles usually live in freshwater habitats such as rivers, lakes and wetlands; they mostly eat fish, reptiles, and mammals, which sounds like almost everything really! Did you know that the word "crocodile" comes from the ancient Greek word for "lizard"? The pressure of a crocodile's bite is more than 5,000 pounds per square inch, compared to just 335 pounds per square inch for a Rottweiler dog, or 400 pounds per square inch for a large great white shark. Crocodiles can swim swiftly and are very fast over short distances, even out of water -- very, very scary!

This picture of the stuffed crocodile was taken outside the auditorium, where we were waiting for a talk by one of the zookeepers. He looks awfully fat, doesn't he. Perhaps he died from that.

Here I am posing at a notice board near the auditorium. Some kids draw stuff and they tack it up here. My friends and I walked around a path near the auditorium and found a creepy, yet cute, surprise hanging from the ceiling. Guess what we saw? Yes, fruit bats!

Isn't it kinda weird that there were bats up there? This is only one of the bats; there were a whole bunch on the ceiling up ahead. My friend started yelling at the bats to come down, which woke some of them up. Some of them flew off but eventually flew back; some just went back to sleep.

Did you know that another name for the fruit bat is megabat? Fruit bats eat, well, fruits, or lick nectar from flowers. They have sharp teeth to bite through hard fruit skins and very long tongues that unroll when they are feeding. Some bats actually help pollinate flowers! Did you know that they have to run into something such as a tree or bush in order stop themselves when flying?

Soon, we were heading to the zoo auditorium to listen to a talk by one of the zookeepers. We were learning about the outer coverings of animals.

Do you see Mr Bones up there? He was used to represent humans, and to tell us that we are mammals, like dolphins and whales.

This is a quote from a wildlife aid group. They try to help animals that are being killed for their skin, fur or feathers. I'm not sure if it's WildAid, but this is their mission, which I think is great: "To end the illegal wildlife trade in our lifetimes by reducing demand through public awareness campaigns and providing comprehensive marine protection.

"The illegal wildlife trade is estimated to be worth over $10 billion (USD) per year and has drastically reduced many wildlife populations around the world. Just like the drug trade, law and enforcement efforts have not been able to resolve the problem. Every year, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent protecting animals in the wild, yet virtually nothing is spent on stemming the demand for wildlife parts and products. WildAid is the only organization focused on reducing the demand for these products, with the strong and simple message: when the buying stops, the killing can too".

The crocodile, tiger cub, pangolin and porcupine had all died a long time ago and been stuffed. The zookeeper had them displayed on a table in front of her and kept stroking them.

The polar bear's paw was from the zoo's polar bear, Inaku, who had recently died of old age. I hope there was a very good reason why they did not just stuff the whole bear and leave him his paws.

The snake's skin had been shed by a python from the zoo's Reptile House.

These are white tigers. Aren't they beautiful? See how their fur gleams in the sun. They always look so proud and majestic, but I think they look happy and cheerful sometimes too.

Unlike domestic cats, tigers have eyes with round, not slitted, pupils. That's because domestic cats are nocturnal, while tigers are crepuscular, meaning they hunt mainly in the morning and evening. Most tigers have yellow eyes, but white tigers usually have blue eyes. This has to do with the the gene for blue eyes which is linked to the gene for white fur (see my cat Ming?). A tiger's night vision is six times better than that of humans!

Tiger claws are retractable, just like with house cats, and they scratch trees to mark their territory. Tigers don't normally roar at other animals, but to communicate with other tigers. A tiger's stripes are unique, like human fingerprints -- the markings can also be found on their skin, so even a shaved tiger would still show its stripes. Tigers are very good swimmers.

Many people hunt down tigers for their beautiful skin, which endangers the poor animals. They also face territory loss as more and more humans crowd them out. In just a hundred years, the world has lost 97% of wild tigers -- don't let them become extinct! Visit groups like the WWF to see how you can help!

We had lots of fun at the zoo, but we learned some sad things about the animals as well. I hope you will help to save these poor endangered and homeless animals. Many animals are endangered because of human activities -- not just poaching and killing, but also other things like deforestation, pollution and using poisons in gardens and on farms. Read this for a start and remember to reduce, reuse and recycle! See you again real soon!

Goodbye

Hello. I am very sad. Scriggle and Shake have passed away. That's why I made this little movie for them, to always remember them. I would like to thank the Sylvanians for caring so much and being part of this. Please pray for them, though I am sure they are fine somewhere in Heaven. I think that Wiggle must be very lonely now, but I think he is adjusting. Bye bye Scriggle and Shake.

Here's Wiggle. I hope he is fine. He is eating dried apples and wholewheat bread. By himself. 

Coppelia

Hello everyone! How have you been? I'm sure you've been having lots of fun if it's your school holidays too. Let me share with you what we did on Day 2 of the holidays! See the big picture up there? Yup, we went to see the ballet Coppelia! As you might know, I study ballet, so I was really excited to be going.

Coppelia is a comic ballet in three acts. It is about an inventor named Dr Coppelius, who has made a life-sized dancing doll. It is so lifelike that everyone thinks she is real, including Franz, one of the lead dancers. He falls in love with her, and Dr Coppelius tries to take his spirit to magically bring Coppelia to life. He does this by giving Franz some wine which has a sleeping powder in it. But Franz's true love Swanhilde rescues him by dressing up as the doll and pretending to come to life instead. She wakes Franz up and winds up all Dr Coppelius' dolls to help them escape.

Here I am dancing outside the concert hall during the intermission. I took off my dress shoes!

Wheee! Dancing is fun! 

Here we are after the intermission, waiting for the third act to start.

After the performance, we walked around the Esplanade for a bit. Here we are looking at some camera thing that they set up for the Mosaic Music Festival. You can stand in front of it and have your picture taken. I'm not sure what that has to do with the festival.

Here we are in front of a huge work of art made up of a whole bunch of paper birds.

This is what it looks like!

Here I am outside of the Esplanade posing with a piano sculpture that looks like it was made up of Christmas tree lights.

 This is one half of the Esplanade at night.

And here we are just sitting and dreaming of our next adventure! See you again soon!

My Little Friends!

Hello there! These are my mealworms Wiggle, Scriggle and Shake! I adopted them from school, where they had been part of a Science class. I am now keeping them in a container with lots of holes for air, and feeding them dried oats and mushy apples. Here is a little movie of my mealworms made by my Mom -- please enjoy!

And here are some pictures!

 

Here is a picture of my worms in their container home.

 

Here they are enjoying their oatmeal!

 

This is Scriggle! He is luxuriating in his food.

 

And here's Wiggle and Shake playing together.  See you again soon!

Happy March Holidays!

Hello everyone! I am having a one-week March holiday! Yippee!

We had a wonderful start to our holidays -- we went to see the Disney on Ice: Princesses & Heroes ice-skating show!

Look! It's Minnie Mouse! She and Mickey and Tinkerbell were the hosts of the show.

This was the scene for Aladdin. It was like an Arabian marketplace.

 

Here is Aladdin meeting the genie. I think it must be hard to skate when you are all covered up in that fat blue costume. 

 

It's rich Aladdin and Princess Jasmine! They are heading down to do a romantic dance.

  

The seven dwarfs! Except they were more like seven strange grownup men.

  

It's Belle doing a cancan dance with forks and spoons! And a giant candelabra.

  

Here are all the sea creatures in the underwater scene!

  

These are some crazy dancing octopus things.

 

It's Ariel! She is my favourite princess. 

 

Hello Ariel! 

 

That's the dragon from Sleeping Beauty. It was huge and shot out fire from its mouth at the prince -- cool!

  Cinderella arriving at the ball. Isn't her carriage nice? 

 

This is Tinkerbell at the finale. The carriage she was in rose up into the air and fireworks came out from it!

  

Here we are after the show. I'm holding my Ariel teacup souvenir! 

 

Here we are waiting for dinner at our favourite Japanese restaurant. We are looking at our show tickets. 

 

This is me making my maki face. Kani maki is favourite (that's the crab meat one).

We had a great time! See you again soon! 

Staycation!

Hi everybody!! How have you been? Today I thought I would share with you some pictures from my little holiday over the weekend! My Mom calls it a "staycation", which means a vacation you spend in your home country.

We stayed at our favourite hotel. They are always so nice to us there! Here you can see us having orange juice because our room wasn't ready yet.

My little sister and I love staycations because we get to do all sorts of fun things that we don't do at home. Like lounging about all day doing art and crafts and watching TV at the same time!

The hotel bathroom is so nice and big. They give us lots of huge towels and awesome-smelling shampoos and soaps. Here I am after one of my baths. I am wearing my abominable snowman pajamas.

We had bubble baths every day. My sister and I love playing "restaurant" in the tub. We serve each other food and drinks that we make out of bubbles!

Of course, I got to do a lot of swimming, which I love!

And I went into the jacuzzi too!

This was a crow who came to look at us at the pool every day. Sometimes he -- or maybe she -- drank water from the pool. I don't know if that was good for him. My Mom said he almost pooped on her. One way you can tell a crow from a raven is that a crow doesn't have a tuft of hair on its bill. So this is a crow.

We got to eat tons of yummy food too! Here I am having breakfast -- sausages and bacon and scrambled eggs, plus hot chocolate, juice and fruit -- yum!!

We ate out too, which is always fun. Here I am having biscotti with my hot chocolate while waiting for my cheesy baked rice.

We went shopping, and also played games at the mall. Here, my sister and I are playing the "jumping squares" game. We jump on the big tiles according to the numbers and directions my Mom calls out. The winner is the one who reaches her first.

That day I brought Monkey with me. He looks a little concerned because he doesn't get out much.

We also went to the arcade, where I played my favourite drumming game about five times! If you play well, you get coupons that you can exchange for gifts.

One really exciting thing that happened was the lion dance right in the hotel! I'd never been so close to one before.

The lions were really cute and did lots of cool things. They threw lots of oranges and vegetables at us. I caught one orange that they had thrown, and put my hand in one lion's mouth to get another! Here, you can see the lettuce that they had just spat out at everybody. The lettuce had been hung up really high and they had to do acrobatics to get it down. The Chinese word for "vegetables" sounds like the word for "fortune". In this picture, they are doing things in their tummies with a whole tray of oranges.

When they got up, we saw that they had peeled all the oranges and made all kinds of Chinese idioms with them. This one is "feng sheng shui qi".

The time came for us to say goodbye to our beloved hotel room. Here I am hugging the bed. I'm really glad we could have such a nice little break like that. It's good to rest and relax sometimes don't you think! I'm already planning my next staycation haha! See you soon!