Company Event - Family Day at the Zoo

On 26 Dec 2010 on our way home from a lunch gathering, we drove passed Mandai road and the children saw the Zoo billboard. Both said they wanted to go to the Zoo. In reply, I told them: “yeah, we would come to the Zoo soon.”

In 1st week of January 2011, Adrian told me his company was organizing a family day event – we were going to the ZOO!

On 22 January 2011 was the event and we only told the children of the outing on the day before as we don’t want them to feel overly-excited.

Early morning, we woke up to a nice breakfast and then headed off to the Zoo. After doing the registration and collection of our goodies bags. We started our Zoo tour. Both Anthea and Anders had a Zoo map and they started navigating which way to go.

We went through the common area to view the animals and also managed to watch 2 live performances before gathering at the Forest Lodge for the lunch. Lunch was KFC meals and Pizzas. Also there was some kind of ceremony and performance in the air-conditioned room.

Anthea had requested for us to go to the Kids World but we had to reject her request as we don’t have the luxury of time and I didn’t pack their wetsuit along.

Around 1 pm, we left the Zoo and headed home to rest. After few visits to the Zoo, I am beginning to find the place a little boring and also the animals are not as lively as some other Zoos. Perhaps it’s time for a major revamp….hehe.

Zoo Outing & my 1st Bento

This morning I woke up around 5.45 am. It's the childcare centre field trip to the Zoo and I felt quite excited about it. This is Anthea and Anders 1st time to the Zoo with their childcare centre.

The other reason for my excitement was – I am preparing my own lunch box. As the children meals are included in the fees, parents were advised to buy their own meal. So I thought it would be a good chance for me to gauge my preparation timing because comes 2009 Anthea will be in morning session.

I had a simple lunch box ingredient in mind – onigiri / hardboiled egg / Vienna sausages.

I started cooking the rice and boiling the eggs. As for the sausages, I just needed to steam them hot in the cooker. All in I spent about 30 minutes, not bad since I didn't plan to do any deco, so my lunch box look a bit dull...haha.

Both anthea and Anders woke up at 7.30 am and had their breakfast. Then we set off to the school. Upon reaching the school, we presented the Teacher's day gift to their class teachers. There were total of 4 gifts - Ms Kelyn and 张老师 (Anders teachers). Ms Valentine / 罗老师 (Anthea teachers)

The principal had a short briefing with the parents who were there for the Zoo trip. I was quite happy to see a large turnout and some even joined in as couples. Each parent was given a bottle of mineral water and a hotdog bun.

We set off from the centre at 9am and reached the Zoo around 9.20am. The children were all excited upon arrival and kept saying what animals they wanted to see... : )

As it was just a ½ day trip, the itinerary was all set up by the school and from the schedule; I knew that there will be limited time/chance to explore the Zoo.

9.30 am – 10.00 am: arrival at the Zoo

10 am – 10.30 am: Educational Programme (Take 5 @ ZOO)

10.30 – 11 am – Proceed to Animals Show

11 am – 11.30 am – Splash Safari Show

11.30 am – 12 noon – Proceed to KFC

12 nn – 1 pm: Lunch

1 pm – 1.30 pm: Return to centre

Anders was a bit disappointed that he can't see all the animals that he was expecting to see. I told him that we will have chance to come again, that's for sure. Anthea had a good time with her classmates.

I brought along bread and biscuits for them to munch while walking on the way. Some of the other children also asked me for the snacks, luckily, I had enough to go around...haha. We had visited the Zoo before and from experienced, I know the children enjoying eating light snacks.

We reached the centre around 1.20pm and I brought Anders and Anthea home for their bath and afternoon nap.

In the evening, Anthea did her MPM lesson and I brought Anders to the library to read some books while waiting.

At night around 9.30pm, we had a chance to talk to Adrian. He was on a tour to Jerusalem and Dead Sea.

It has been a tiring but very fulfilling day spends with the children.

Fun Day at The Zoo

The childcare centre is closed on 19 Dec and 21 Dec, so i took 2 days of my childcare leaves to be with them.

Earlier on i applied for my company Zoo corporate card and this time i was lucky. I got it for the 19 Dec and the card to be returned on 21 Dec since 20 Dec is a Hari Raya holiday.

We decided to go on 19 December becaused from previous experience Hari Raya is always a rainy day..hee : P

In the morning, Adrain drove us all to my office to pick up the Zoo card and then we made our way to the Singapore Zoo.

When we arrived, Adrian went for his jog around the Mandai reservoir while the 3 of us went for our zoo visit. We made arrangement for Adrian to meet us after his jog.

Our 1st stop was the Pony ride as Anthea wanted to do that. So i bought a ticket for Anthea's ride. Anders was a bit hesitant when i asked him if he wanted to take the ride. When we were at the Pony ride area, there were no one else, except us. So the Zoo keeper was very kind, he allowed Anders to go on the ride, eventhough he does not had a ticket. Both of then enjoyed the Pony's ride.

After the ride, we went for The Elephant show. It was an enjoyable show and i was truely impressed with the work that our Asia Elephants displayed.

Adrian met us at the restaurant for lunch. At the lunch place, there were some displays of snakes and both Anthea and Anders had a good chance to go up closed and personal with the snakes.

Then we went to the children play area. As the weather was bright and sunny, the children had about 20 minutes of waterplay.

Thereafter, we went on to see Hippo and Kangeroo before calling it a day. As usual, our last stop is Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

We headed home after a good, fun day at the Zoo. We were blessed with a day of very good & sunny weather.

Family Outing - Zoo, 16 Sep 2007

Recently we visited the Goat Farm and the children had such fun time that they kept saying they wanted to go to the Zoo and see animals.

As a 二十四孝母亲, i started sourcing around for FREE Zoo passes. My company has corporate card and required balloting, so i submitted my request for the next visit. I started asking family members for their help as well. On Friday, i received bad news - my request for zoo card was rejected. And GOOD New from mother in law, she got the card for Sunday, 16 Sep 2007. I was over the moon when i got the call from her.

On Saturday night, i told Anthea and Anders of our plan to the Zoo trip, subject to weather condition.

This morning it was raining very heavily, so i thought that likely we will need to cancel the trip. However around 10am, the sky started clearing and the rain stopped with slight drizzle. Anthea called from MIL's house to tell us that the rain has stopped.


I told Adrian that we should go ahead since the rain has stopped and also it's not easy for MIL to get the corporate card. Even if it rain later, at least we made the effort.

The decision was rewarded. We had very good and nice weather throughout the 4 hours tours of the zoo. We must thank our guarding angels for listening to our prayers.

When the children reached the zoo, they were so happy and excited. With a map in each of their hand, they started going "ok, i want to see Lion, Zebra, Tiger, Kangeroos and.....", the list just went on.

We managed to watch 2 shows :

1. Animals Friends Show - 12.30 pm &

2. Splash Safari Show - 2.30 pm (this is a new show)

The Wonder of the Wild show has been suspended..not sure if they are changing the program or the Amphitheatre.

We also fed the Manetee aka Sea cow, it was quite interesting. (at least the children had the chance to feed the animals.)

I think because of the good weather, the animals also seem to be more lively and walking around more.

We completed our tour of the Zoo around 3pm and as usual, headed to Ben & Jerry for an Ice cream delight. Both anthea and Anders kept saying they want to come back to see the animals again, so now i am considering signing up as Friends of The Zoo.

We reached home at 4pm and Anders had his power nap.

Now that the children are growing and knowing more about animals, zoo outing is much more fun and educational for the family.