Our Neighborhood

Our neighborhood is Spottiswoode Park. To go to a website about Spottiswoode Park click here.
The Sri Muneswaran Temple we see every day. Sometimes we see Hindus having a service there. We can also hear them, because the drums there are loud! This is the side entrace to the railway canteen. It is were we usually eat dinner.

Fort Siloso

Yesterday, we went to Fort Siloso on Sentosa. It was interesting. They had several guns that "fired" when you pressed a button. They also had scenes from British Army life in Singapore during the late 19th century. One of the best parts was the Surrender Chambers. It was two scenes, the British surrender to the Japanese in 1942 and the Japanese surrender at Singapore several days after the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fort Siloso had a lot of guns. They ranged from 1874 (when Fort Siloso was built) through the Japanese Occupation. Most of the guns are British, though there are a few Japanese guns. A popular myth is that the guns at Fort Siloso never fired during the Japanese invasion because they were they were facing the sea while the Japanese came by land. In reality, the British turned there guns around to face the land. Several guns also assisted in the sinking of a Japanese troopship that was trying to go into Keppel Harbour.The guns at Fort Siloso also helped destroy rubber depots, oil in installations and places like that so they wouldn't fall into Japanese hands. On February 14 the British destroyed their big guns. They blew them up, or threw them off cliffs. Then the next day, the British surrendered to the Japanese. Fort Siloso became a POW camp. Civilans were also kept there. Many of the POWs went to work on the famous Death Railway that ran through Malaysia. For more information click here. This is Fort Siloso's website. I also got one of the pictures from here.

Transportation

Since we don't have a car, we rely on public transportation. The three forms of transportation are bus, train, and taxi. We generally use buses and trains to get around. There are two types of trains, the MRT(right) and the LRT. We always use the MRT because it is more widespread than the LRT.
Usually, we don't have to buy an MRT ticket. We all have ez-link cards. You can tap them on machines when you get on and get off buses and the MRT(maybe the LRT too but we don't know). You can also use them at McDonalds,7-Eleven, and most of the CocaCola vending machines. However, every so often, we have to recharge our ez-link cards. If we don't have the correct bills, or if you don't have enough to recharge, you have to get a normal ticket.
If you to know more, click here.
This is also the website where I got the photo.

The Singapore Zoo

A few days ago, we went to the Singapore Zoo. It was great!!!!! We saw many interesting animals. One of the first we saw was the proboscis monkey (top right and middle right). They had really long noses. Then we to this jungle place that had turties, flying foxes, tree kangaroos, and other wildlife. In the middle was a viewing platform. We saw a lot of things there.

When I was about to go down, I saw two ringtailed lemurs! One was showing his tail off.
Another animal we saw was the white tiger. There are few in the wild.

Jurong Bird Park

Yesterday, Mom, Dad, and I went to the Jurong Bird Park. In the African Wetlands exhibit, we saw Mom's favorite type of bird: the black crowned crane (top left). We also saw my favorite bird, the shoebill stork (bottom left). There was a show called the Birds and Buddies show. It had several kinds of birds (flamingos, pelicans, toucans, a hornbill, a vulture, ...) that paraded on stage or flew among the audience or did other things. For example, a macaw and a cockatoo played basketball. The show also had people in bird costumes.
After the show, we went on a monorail that goes around the bird park. Then it was time for another show. This one was called Kings of the Skies. They had birds of prey that caught meat in the air. I think this show was better than the other one.
Then we started looking at birds. We first went to the Waterfall Aviary. It was a little disappointing; the only interesting bird there was a helmet crested guineafowl. Then we went to a place called the Lory Loft. It had TONS of lories. My favorite kind was called a rainbow lory. It is very colorful.
After that, mom went to see the South-East Asian birds and Dad and I went to the World of Darkness, which had some interesting owls like Great Greys and Snowies. I loved the Great Greys. I saw one of them fly. It had a huge wingspan!

Sentosa Island

Yesterday, we went to Sentosa Island by cable car. We could see the container terminal that we can see from the place where we stay (left). Here is the merlion statue that you see as you reach the island.

The first thing we did was go to an aquarium called Underwater World, an small aquarium that where there is a moving walkway where you underneath and through several tanks where you can see many fish, sharks, and rays. They even have a white dugong.

In smaller tanks they had many kinds of crabs and some jelly fish. The also had weedy sea dragons, which are like sea horses, but larger. They look like aliens.

A lagoon called Dolphin Lagoon at another part of the island has a show with pink dolphins. These are born gray and turn pink as they grow older -- the one about to "kick" a soccer ball is younger than the one jumping through a hoop.
We also went swimming in the ocean and watched the big ships.
It was an eventful day!

Singapore

Late last night, Singapore time, we arrived in Singapore. We have a room at a bed and breakfast place at the top of a high rise. So far we haven't done much except to find restaurants to eat at. We did ride a double decker bus!

Japan

On New Year`s Day, we took a flight to Tokyo`s Narita Airport. We booked a hotel with traditional Japanese rooms. We have one room about the size of a bedroom. Three futons take up the whole room. Around the hotel, we wear slippers that the hotel provides instead of our normal shoes. Here, it`s already your tomorrow.
We went to Ueno Park and visited the Tokyo National Museum inside the park.At the museum, we saw 11 of Hiroshige's 53 Stages on the Tokaido Road and some samurai armor and helmets(top left). When we went outside, we saw people doing a lion dance(bottom right) because of the new year. Then we went to a temple to see the paintings of the Tokugawa Shoguns. We were trying to find a Shogun called Yoshimune.
He was a character in the Ghost in the Tokaido Inn Series. They are about a boy named Sekei who is adopted by an important judge. Sekei helps the judge solve several mysteries. The most recent one is The Sword that Cut the Burning Grass. I think these books are great!!!
A little later, we took a train called the Superview Ordoriko to Shimoda. Shimoda is were Commodore Perry landed to open up Japan's ports. We stayed at the Rendaji Hot Springs Resort. The baths there were great!! The day after we arrived at Shimoda, we took a gondola on the Shimoda Ropeway to a mountain. There, we saw Shimoda Harbor. On the observation deck was a signpost(top right) that showed how far New York, Mt. Fuji, Tokyo, and others places were.