Text 20060, 99 rader
Skriven 2009-01-24 15:27:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: trip 125
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Dragged me slowly out of bed for the trip to the famous zoo.
Allowed an hour by MRT - Tiong Bahru to Choa Chu Kang to
the 927 I think it is bus - and would have been there right
on time but for a motorbike having been smashed by a car
right at the turnoff on Mandai Lake Road (the guy looked
ok - he was walking around but a bit dazed). Showed up ten
late, but our group were still milling about at the entrance,
so I didn't have to sprint up and down the entire place
looking for them.

The zoo is really well planned out, just right for a half
day for the easily bored or a whole day for the easily
amused. I'd done the whole day thing before (with Carol
Bryant, about 3 or 4 years ago; nothing's changed), and
further, I have mixed feelings about creatures being caged
up in no matter how benign and comfortable captivity; still,
this is a good zoo, and I was happy to spend the time
with friends in a pleasant setting. My favorite spot was
the rainforest habitat, where the animals are given pretty
free rein, rain, and reign in a sizable facsimile of the
wild. The up close and personal encouter this time was
with a particularly bold ringtail who posed obligingly for
numerous shots. Oh, there are photos out there on the Web
of us communing with orangutans (men of the woods); the
ones of me, as I am somewhat shy with persons especially of
different species, show me with men of wood instead.

The canteen is about as good as you can hope for. I had a
roast chicken rice that would be the pride of any stall
in the city, the chicken white meat (they sell the legs
separately in bbq sauce for a premium) admirably tender
and chickeny, its skin deeply brown, the rice just the
right texture and saltiness and with a tiny sheen of
chicken fat. Baby bok choy were the usual, as was a
cup of thin broth. I also got an order of crystal
dumplings, which were just a bit softer and wetter than
ideal. Jeff, the guy whom Carol and I stayed with in New
Zealand in '07, made a comment on the originality of my
choices: I looked over, and he had ordered the same things
(but with shumai instead, but the steamers looked the same).
His appetite seems to have been bigger than mine, as he
stepped out with Pat for an afters of Ben & Jerry's,
returning with an enormous cookie sundae, which we all had
bites of. I believe there are pictures of this extravaganza
on the Web as well.

After we'd had our fill of zoo, we split up to freshen up,
go swimming, or as in the case of Bo the Swede and myself,
to Boat Quay and the annual beer DO. Being relatively
cheap and adventurous, we took the MRT and didn't get there
(there being a Chinese restaurant, instead of the Thai one
we used to go to) until pretty late. Dave #2 greeted us
with the news that Dave #1 had just left, but if I ran I
could catch up and say hi. So I did, returning breathless
and in sore need of beer. Lots of beer, duly consumed.
Then off to dinner.

We had reservations for a party of 40 at the Jumbo Seafood
Restaurant. Turns out, though, that Jumbo has seen fit to
have two outlets within a few blocks of each other. Ours,
as Bo and I determined on our trek, was the modern-looking
one, so we were confident where to go. Surprisingly, it
appears that none of our party was led astray, and we all
showed up in a reasonably timely fashion at the right one.
This one has a private room, which is jolly but got
extremely noisy when filled to its capacity (my impression
is that we were a bit over).

What we had: 

chilli crab - good, not too sweet, though not quite spicy
enough, very fresh big 2 kg mud crab;

black pepper crab - quite peppery, ditto on the crab;
I really liked this;

cereal prawns - the standard, from what I recall - this
means large, shell-on, head-on crustaceans coated in
crushed vanilla-flavored cornflakes and deep-fried. Do
you recall when I said something about Singlish cuisine?
This is an example;

drunken prawns in a rather medicinal-tasting soup: tasted
just like the cough remedies that used to be brewed up for
me when I was a kid;

and for veggies broccoli and baby bok choy, both excellent.

I'd been pretty beered out by this time but did suck down a
few mugs of Tiger, which made me not fully appreciate the
short get-together afterwards at which Mike showed off his
top-floor suite at the Novotel. Fading fast, I decided not
to try for the Inter-Continental open bar party later.

Saw my friend Lori off to the MRT and had a quick and easy
walk back to the Holiday Inn.
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