HUNTER, CARTER & CHLOE, Living in... Singapore JURONG BIRD PARK 18 April 2013

So I had the brilliant idea of taking the kids to Jurong Bird Park, especially since I scored them on Groupon at a 50% discount. I bought 4 adult tickets, thinking my parents could bring Hunter by themselves on one occasion, and Chris and I could bring both kids on another. Best bang for the buck since Hunter would get to go check it out twice!

Yeah.

So stupid me forgot all about it, or rather forgot the expiry date. I only realised it 2 weeks AFTER they had expired!!!! But on the phone, I really did think the customer service lady told me to just come in that day and it should be OK.

So I decided that Mum, Dad and I should go (Chris was away in San Francisco and Japan last week on business) and just forgo the 4th ticket. But when we got there, they wouldn’t let us use the expired tickets after all.

SIGH.

It was entirely my fault, so I couldn’t exactly make a big stink about it (though it reallllyyyyy annoyed me when Groupon put up another deal a few days later!!). So anyway, we paid for full-price adult tickets all over again since we were already there and Hunter was longingly pleading “Go innnnnn!” and I felt so guilty.

And now that I have told you that story, we shall speak no more of it because I am still super pissed off I lost so much money on these tickets, and I have no one to blame by myself *ANGRYFACE*

 

Obligatory super-touristy pic

 

I particularly like this photo below because, as we were walking, Hunter grabbed my hand and earnestly said “Mama. Take photo of Hunter here!” and scurried across the grass to this particular spot. I realised he wanted a photo there because there was a tram there that looked like a train (his obsession), which you can see in the right of the photo. Anyway, it was meaningful to me because it was one of those times where you realise your little baby now has a mind of his own, and desires, and can express them clearly to you. It was just nice 🙂

Hunter, smiling nicely for his requested photo. He wanted Monkey to be in it too.

 

Of course, he got to go on the tram. It’s $5 for unlimited rides but being a bit daft, we only got one go on it because it stopped running at 5PM, which we didn’t realise! Grrrrrr. He did love it, though 🙂

Puttering around on the traim

 

We also managed to catch one bird show, which was a terrific one. It included lots of various birds, so actually, if you were lazy, you could just watch the show and get to see most of the birds and not have to walk around the park! It was interactive and fun, and Hunter and Carter had a blast 🙂

Waiting for the show to begin

 

Mr sticky-out bottom lip

 

Hunter was a bit worried at the start, but warmed up to it quickly

 

From serious concentration…..

 

…to utter delight!

 

These two parrots were having a race, transferring balls into the tree stump. Cute!

 

One of the parrots was trained to speak, count AND sing!
httpv://youtu.be/8oQKnLqIwno

They brought all 100 birds (!) onto the stage for the finale

 

Checking out the baby flamingoes

Hunter giving his donation

 

There are also quite a few enclosed air-conditioned areas… HUGELY appreciated 😉 They came in especially useful when Hunter went down for his 2-hour afternoon nap, as we could scoot from one enclosure to the other and still keep him cool and comfy.

One of the particularly fun ones was the Penguins, because they were all fat and waddly and very active! Both kids gawked and had great fun watching them swim around.

Penguins!

 

Kids posing with a giant penguin (whose head got chopped off. The penguin Carter is patting is the little baby one, obviously!)

 

It was hot and I really hate Singapore’s heat and humidity, but it didn’t seem to affect the kids at all. They were very pleased and Hunter was walking/running around, not bothered to be sweating at all. Guess that’s a good thing!

Getting some exercise pushing Carter up the hill.. no mean feat considering Carter tips the scales at over 10KG at 8 months old..

 

Evil-looking cassowary. I don’t like these birds. They look at you like they want to peck your eyes out.

 

How an egg is formed inside a chicken. I thought this was SO interesting!!!!

 

We stopped for an ice cream treat. Carter made a desperate GRAB for it, he’ll do just about anything for food!

 

This had me in hysterics. Hilarious!! 

 

Biiiiiiigggg man-made waterfall

 

To cool off, we plonked Hunter in the water park. SUCH. A. GOOD. IDEA. Thank you Jurong Bird Park for doing this!

That said, Hunter was veeerrrryyyyyy iffy about it.

You know him – he’s always so worried about his well-being! So he was SO CONCERNED about the big bucket up in the air that tipped over with water once it was filled up….. sloshing everyone below with water. Obviously kids love that sort of stuff and actually like to stand underneath to get splashed on. But not Hunter. I kept trying to drag him toward it, and he would pull me back, going “Mama CAREFUL. Water spill. Wet.”

So to be honest, he didn’t really get on the fun stuff at all, cos it was just too… errrr… wet, for him. He didn’t even go down the slides which were so much fun!!!!

Looking dreadfully concerned about all this water splashing around him

 

How cool is this?!

 

Scurrying frantically back down the stairs because he was convinced the big bucket of water was about to pour down (it did – haha)

 

Right next to it though is the DRY playground, and he did love that. He felt much safer! We had fun on that… until we were kicked out since it was closing time.

Bye guys!

 

It was a fab outing for the kids and a nice activity to do together. If only tickets were half the price! I’d go there just for the big bird show, and the waterpark 🙂

 

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Let's Chat!

Hi Bev, you could try writing in to Groupon about the expired vouchers. One of my vouchers expire recently and Groupon was kind enough to return me the amount in the form of credits. Hope they do that for you too!

I usually forget about vouchers (many were gifted for our wedding) and a handful were expired argh!!! Sigh.

Now I leave them on the fridge in hope that I remember that they exist 😛

on another note I made an appt with Anti-Oxidant! Much needed me time 🙂 hope it relieves my aching back too.

my daughter (a week younger than hunter) weighs only 20 lbs.! oddly, her older brother was 27 lbs. at 8 months.

beverly, i forgot to mention… you should be allowed to still use the groupon voucher for the amount you paid for it, even though the promo value is expired. at least, that’s how it is here in the US, by law. it might be worth a try!

Carter looks really huge for his age. He (bigger thighs than Hunter) looks almost the same size as Hunter

He’s over 10KG so yeah, pretty big for an 8 month old! Hunter was gigantic when he was a baby too though.. so I reckon Carter will lean out a bit once he walks 😛