Asia

April 28, 2025April 20, 2025 Kirsten

Asia Diaries: February 2025 ~ Relaxed Chengdu afternoon at the Wuhou Lantern Festival

A relaxing afternoon after a very hectic morning/half day of travel stress! My flight was originally scheduled for 2:20AM from Kuala Lumpur to Guangzhou, arriving at 6:40AM then I had a few hours layover until my flight to Chengdu at 9:30AM which got me in at 11:55AM. With almost 3 hours to enter China in Guangzhou and grab some breakfast, I should have been fine. But as we boarded the plane in Kuala Lumpur and settled in, the captain announced a 2 hour delay! They hoped we could maybe get an earlier slot (hence why we were boarded), but our departure slot was now 4:20AM =O That left me with under an hour to enter China (meaning go through passport control and get back through security again), won’t lie, that was a stressful thought! Because of that I didn’t get much/any sleep, and my seat neighbour didn’t help – he was a ‘manspreader’, not only putting his leg into my foot space (and his socked foot onto my bag?!?!) but also stretching up then leaning on my shoulder with his elbow?!?! So while he nodded off within about 5 minutes of them announcing the delay, I did not. We indeed took off 2 hours late and I think I managed 20 minutes of sleep here and there, but definitely not enough – at least I had brought some snacks.

April 21, 2025April 19, 2025 Kirsten

P A N D A S @ Z O O N E G A R A M A L A Y S I A February 2025

Wow, 2 days and 2 new panda locations for me! Now it’s time to share about the giant pandas living in Zoo Negara Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur! Alike in Singapore, the pandas here are living in a purpose-built home, they are always kept indoors and there is temperature control, so it’s lovely and cool for the visitors too. For me, this was by far the best bit of the zoo, and while it was sometimes busy, it never felt too full and I was always able to get a spot to see the pandas – what helped here was that buggies/prams/pushchairs were not allowed in the building, and needed to be left outside, so this ensured the walkways inside were clear and having experience the opposite at many panda locations, this made for a better visit. There was always a staff member at the entrance, reminding about the rules for visiting the pandas, including that food and drink could not be brought in and that visitors needed to remain quiet. Inside there was also always either a staff member or a zoo volunteer also ensuring that the rules were abided to and making sure visitors quietened down if they were too loud. For me, it worked really well and I had a great visiting experience here!

April 14, 2025April 13, 2025 Kirsten

Asia Diaries: February 2025 ~ 24 hours in KUALA LUMPUR for the first time + Zoo Negara Malaysia

After 2 days in Singapore, it was time to move on to my next destination, another first – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! After a busy panda-filled day at River Wonders, I took the bus+metro back to my hotel, collected my luggage and booked my Grab to the airport. It’s super speedy and I had plenty of time for my 9:20PM flight – being neighbours, it’s 1hr 10 minute flight from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, and I made sure to have time to quickly check out the cool airport that is Changi!

April 7, 2025April 6, 2025 Kirsten

Night Safari, Singapore 2025

The final park of my Singapore trip, something totally different, it’s Night Safari! I’m not sure if many, or if any, other locations have a park like this – the opening hours are 7:15PM until midnight and you can see nocturnal animals in their natural routine. I was surprised to hear that Night Safari has been open since 1994, I really thought it had only opened more recently than that and I think it certainly attracts visitors for being incredibly unique. I will preface this by saying that I’m not great at twilight or night-time photography, so I didn’t get a lot of photos (or actually see a lot of animals) but I still think it was worth experiencing! Night Safari is located right next to both Singapore Zoo and River Wonders, so you can easily walk between the sites – with the entrance area shops and restaurants opening at 5:30PM so an option is to finish up at one of these parks then stroll on over for dinner before the Night Safari.

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