Have not been visiting zoo for the last decade and never realize spore zoo can be so charming and interesting till 30 Nov 09 morning when I went there early in the morning together with some 30 travel trade from China (Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhongsan, Sichuan etc) and Singapore. My main purpose was to experience the famous programme of breakfast with Ah Meng (even though he died last year, but the name of the programme remains unchanged).
2 First, we visited the designated courtyard to view our dear elephants having breakfast. This is really my first time having such a close encounter with elephants, close look at their huge and longish mount, lip and how they used their long trunk to grab the food gently and sending into their mouth, break open the big watermelon and pineapple, they eat just fruits - mango, apple, an
d pineapple, very healthy right, our animals are all vegetarian, or to be exact, they are fruitarian!! Very interesting elephants breakfast programme, a lot of laughter and interaction among us. This surely is a good programme for kids and adults, connection developed when u are helping each other to feed the elephants and picture-takings.3 Then we moved to the pool to witness elephants spa, yes animal also like us love to have spa. Look at the pictures u will see how enjoyable they are in the cool pool happily, just like us having our spa, wonderful. Maybe we should name this Animal Spa. Water splashing and laughter everywhere, all worries gone. No gap of age and race difference at all.
4 Never tasted the Zoo’s well-know breakfast with Ah Meng (
Orangutan) until today also even though I have heard so much about it. It is really an experienc
e shouldn’t be missed, the ambience of 
the 
restaurant in the zoo is so cozy and relax with nature around us, the buffet line up was good, and 
around us was a big group of 40-member European education group of teachers and students enjoying their breakfast. Food ran out pretty fast, but the replenishment came fast too. All were 
enjoying their meals till sweet announcement of Ah Meng made their appearance in the compound of the outdoor restaurant, many hi-tech cameras were clipping, people posing with them for pictures, queue quickly formed.
Orangutan) until today also even though I have heard so much about it. It is really an experienc
e shouldn’t be missed, the ambience of 
the restaurant in the zoo is so cozy and relax with nature around us, the buffet line up was good, and 
around us was a big group of 40-member European education group of teachers and students enjoying their breakfast. Food ran out pretty fast, but the replenishment came fast too. All were 
enjoying their meals till sweet announcement of Ah Meng made their appearance in the compound of the outdoor restaurant, many hi-tech cameras were clipping, people posing with them for pictures, queue quickly formed.
5 Can imagine Zoo promoters have put in efforts to design the programme however, maybe they should do away with the briefing since seeing/experiencing is believing plus the presentation was quite dry especially when the zoo representative from the education unit cannot communicate and market its products in Mandarin then it shows that we are not really in engaging the China education travel specialists seriously. In addition, we noticed a common language challenge facing our promoters when it comes to using Mandarin as a communication medium. Also found it quite strange that they make it a point as though it is a proud thing to make it known that their Mandarin is poor. Why? Should not they just go straight to the point of presenting it instead of announcing proudly to the audience that they are weak in Mandarin, what happen to our bilingualism? Would we do so when we do our presentation in English and tell the European/USA delegations that our English is sub-standard to them
6 Met a young zoo executive Michelle Tan, 18, just completed GCE”A” level and joined the zoo for 3 months, she did a wonderful insects tour (behind the scene nreeding area od butterfly, hundred-leg insect, red-knee spider etc) and tropical forest tour to see fruit bat, 2-toed sloth, butterflies drinking water etc for us with her cheerful and passionate spirit. At first, she did mention that she is not sure whether she could deliver in Mandarin but will try her best and I encouraged her just do it without hesitation as none of us know more than her and she is the expert in this field and we are students. She gladly tool up the challenge and did so thereafter. I hope all our fellow English-speaking Singaporeans would have the same attitude and spirit like Michelle (regret not taking a photo with her) when they are asked to do Mandarin presentation in future. No need to say sorry about it, just do it and believe u can make it. I have learnt a lot from this insect and tropical forest journey, please see the pictures taken during the tour.
7 I would highly recommended u to visit or re-visit the zoo if u have not done so or have done so more than 5 or 10 years ago. It is an absolutely wonderful gem we have in our tourism kingdom. Thanks to the zoo organization and their staff for keep the place so well and charming.
8 I briefly visited 2 hospitals – Raffles Medical and Gleneagle in the next 2 days. Raffles has good hardware and cozy environment, Gleneagle is equally good in hardware but need urgent upgrading as it looks dated and messy. In terms of software and understanding the needs of Chinese travel trade, there is still room for improvement and strengthening so as to capture a bigger share of the medical pie.
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