hui's monologue : Shanghai Trip Part 4

Shanghai Trip Part 4 - Shanghai Wildlife Park

I'm terrible at keeping this blog updated. This post took me days in portions to finish! But it is also the favourite part of my trip.

The Shanghai Wildlife Park is located in the outskirts of Shanghai so we had to be up early. The Park is accessible by train (from Line 7 to Line 16 and then to Huinan Line 6) and it took us slightly over 2 hours to reach.

There is a separate line just to reach the Park - this station is fairly new (read: less dirty and more modern looking).

As it's a designated line to the Park, the seats are also less space efficient (since you will have lesser people on this line on a regular day compared to the regular train route).

There is a bus stop just outside of the train station (when you reach the Shanghai Wildlife) and there's only one bus available which takes you straight to the park. Usually you get non-registered drivers (as in not licensed cab drivers) offering to drive you over at RMB15 (or around 3 Sing dollars).

Love this app! It's only available in China I guess (couldn't find it in the Google Playstore on my phone). The attire of the weather girl (you can change it to boy if you want) changes according to the weather

The bus took too long to come and we decided to take a regular cab which cost us around RMB15. The park has a large spacious entrance, something you don't see often in the land-scarce Singapore.

Since it was a weekday and we arrived around noon, there were few people at the ticket counters.

Picking up the map at this point is highly encouraged! We were informed that the park covers an area of 153 hectares , with 1/3 of the area accessible only by vehicle as animals are allowed to roam.

There are 2 types of vehicles available - 1 is the main feeding bus (it's a grilled up bus) where it takes up to 50 passengers (around RMB50 each). The other one is a smaller (and newer) mini bus which takes around 15 passengers. The mini bus cost RMB600 (if I remember correctly) so it's better to find other groups of visitors to share it with you.

A family of 4 adults and 1 kid approached us to share the minibus and we gladly did! The cost was split evenly across 6 adults.

Off we go! Warning: Photos spam ahead!

The ride lasted around 45 minutes. We didn't have the chance to take the main feeding bus so I don't really have an alternative to compare against. Would I recommend the smaller ride? Absolutely! But only if you are sharing with another family/group.

We headed to the Animal Kingdom Arena thereafter since the bus lady told us there's going to be an animal performance coming up in 15 minutes time. We were expecting the regular kind of animal shows in Singapore Zoo (read: birds flying around and seals gliding around.

Well.. that didn't happen. It felt more like a circus and animals were doing acts that were not part of their natural movement. We didn't feel comfortable sitting around watching the animals perform circus-like stunts and we left around 10 minutes into the show.

The Ligers! They are a Lion-tiger hybrid and have very slim chances for survival if left out in the wild. The male species are born barren while the female species can mate with either lions or tigers. There were only a pair of Ligers in the park - a male and a female. Both genders are much larger than the pure lions and tigers.

The male Liger has no mane and has a larger built and head compared to the female. Both have very subtle stripes from the tiger side of the genes.

We arrived in time for the feeding session at the Tigers Enclosure. Just a note: the glass that separates you and the tigers are really quite thin :O. And them locals have no qualms about knocking on the glass to get the animals' attention so as to "get a good selfie".

In the middle of the park, is an extremely large man-made pond where the swans are allowed to roam around in.

You can purchase packets of food (RM10 each) to feed the swans. However, that food store closed at 2pm and we arrived way too late at 3pm. The boy was determined to find something for me to feed the swans. Hahaha. He left me at a shelter nearby and told me to stay put while he hunt for the park keepers.

Turned out most of the animal snack stores have closed by then but the boy followed the evening feeders and managed to pinch some vegetables from them!

Headed off to the lemur island - and possibly my favourite section of the park!

I have so many photos of all the animals in the park but I decided not to upload all them. Just too many! We maximized our time there and stayed till the very last minute - last to walked out the gate!

Would I recommend friends and family to drop by this place for a day out? Absolutely. They have a huge variety of animals! However, given the large grounds that it's built on, it can be very taxing on young children and old folks.

I was adamant to visit every single enclosure so we skipped lunch and walked non-stop for a good 5 hours. The poor boy starved together with me and we decided to treat ourselves to an extremely tasty dinner.

While out shopping the other night, I craved for some good Pineapple buns (or Bolo Bao - it doesn't really have pineapples in it though haha) and bugged the boy to visit the Tsui Wah outlet with me. Turned out besides Bolo buns, they also serve pretty authentic Hong Kong dishes.

The roasted pork was to die for!