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 (bdesmond, BonnieSEA, chchkiwi, gvdIAD,
jswong, lili, restlessinRNO, later joined by upup&away) 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, 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 FTers 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. jswong 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 lili 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 upup&away 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. newself greeted us
with the news that bseller had just left, but if I ran I
could catch up and say hi. So I did, encountering Downunder
Girl as well. The roster, as I recall, but blurred by a
number of Tigers, included (question marks are people I
talked to this day, but I'm not sure whether here or at
the dinner)
anaggie
blanksheet
bschaff
KRS?
Moomba?
mikey2007?
newself
rtarbuck?
steady-EDI?
upup&away

There are two Jumbos within a few blocks of each other.
Ours, as upup&away and I determined on our trek, was the
modern-looking one, so we were confident where to go.
Surprisingly, it appears that no FTer 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 of about
40 (my impression is that we were a bit over).

My notes indicate that the following were at my table:

blanksheet
BonnieSEA
infoworks
karenkay
upup&away
Where2Next and PlusOne
me

I'm not sure about the other two, but don't be offended,
please, I blame it on the beer.

What we had:

chilli crab - good, not too sweet, very fresh crab;

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

cereal prawns - the standard, from what I recall;

drunken prawns in a rather medicinal-tasting soup;

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 opushomes
showed off his top-floor suite at the Novotel. Fading fast,
I decided not to try for any kind of IC minibar raid.

Saw Lori_Q off to the MRT and had a quick and easy walk back
to the Holiday Inn.