49. Feed an interesting creature

As I mentioned in the previous blog, we visited the Singapore Zoo on Monday and fed some very interesting creatures!

At the beginning of the day we were able to see 2 of the zoo's elephants taking their morning bath. One of the elephants thought it would be great fun to absolutely SOAK Amanda. It was pretty funny. We spent about 15 minutes feeding the elephants apples and carrots. Kaid was pretty nervous at first. You could tell he really wanted to do it, but he was clearly scared. He told me later that he had thought that elephants use their trunks like vacuums to suck things up. He had been worried that his arm would get sucked up the trunk! Once he realized that their trunks are just like hands, he very enthusiastically started feeding them. Thanks to Kaidyn, those elephants ate about 50 kg of food in about 5 minutes!

The next animals we fed were the giraffes. This was definitely the MESSIEST feeding session we participated in. Kylisha and Amanda are still finding giraffe slobber behind their ears. Basically you can hold a carrot anywhere near your face (or in your pocket) and the giraffes will use their 3 metre long tongues to find and grab the carrots!! Because the zoo was so dead we ended up feeding the giraffes for a long time. We were definitely happy that we had the opportunity to go during the week. We have heard that it's ridiculously busy on Saturdays and Sundays.

A quick shout out to Amanda's "Bonus Face" in this pic! It's a surprise she let me post it! hahaha! The giraffe's slobber was definitely too good not to share, though!


Later in the day we got to get up close and personal with some giant tortoises. Some of the tortoises were 80 years old. Because their jaws are so powerful, you can't feed them out of your hand like the other animals at the zoo. We fed them apples by putting the chunks on the ends of sticks. The tortoises would eat the apples off the sticks. It was pretty hilarious seeing 5 giant tortoises "chasing" Kaidyn around to try and get him to feed them. They were surprisingly fast for being so huge. Kaid loved rubbing their heads and feeling their shells too. Once again, since the zoo was so dead, we spent about a half hour interacting with these big guys. Pretty cool.

Later in the afternoon we fed one of Kylisha's favourite animals-the manatee. The last time we went to Florida Kylisha, Amanda, and Amanda's dad went and swam with manatees in the wild. Kylisha absolutely fell in love with them, so she was pretty excited to be able to feed them. It was pretty cool to feed them because they have rough whiskers that they use to help push the food you are holding into their mouths. We fed them cooked potatoes and carrots. Since they have no teeth, their food has to be soft. The kids loved rubbing their heads and feeling their whiskers. There were also 2 babies that were pretty cute.

At the end of the day we checked out the Australian area of the zoo and we got to interact with some kangaroos and wallabies. Kaidyn loved cuddling up with the kangaroos. They were so tame and friendly. Since there were no other people around we got to spend as much time as we wanted hanging out with them. A perfect way to end our day there!

It's hard to pick which experience was the best, but if we had to choose our faves, here's what we'd have to say:

My fave-the elephants
Kaid's-manatees
Kylisha's- Tie between giraffes and manatees
Amanda's- Tie between giraffes and tortoises

12 experiences down...only 88 more to go!