Date Night at the Long Bar and Night Safari

Well, just a few days ago Matt decided it was time for a date night! :-) Back in the states, date night usually consists of dinner followed by a movie at home, but living over here makes date night 10x more exciting because the options are endless! So my sweet, sweet husband took out the trusty guide books and planned a fun evening of "must dos" while in Singapore. Our first stop for the evening was a visit to Raffles Hotel and the Long Bar. Raffles Hotel is a historic hotel (built in 1887) and its absolutely beautiful! The main lobby is private, meant for residents only, and at a starting price of $640 US per night, we'll never be residents which means we didn't get to see the glorious lobby. BUT, we did take a stroll through the outer wings of the hotel - gorgeous! After touring the actual hotel, we made our way to the Long Bar...our true reason for heading to the hotel. The Long Bar, located inside the Raffles Hotel, is the original home of the famous Singapore Sling - a deliciously sweet drink that we HAD to try! It was the cutest place to have dinner and a drink and we had an awesome time there! The second stop for date night was the Night Safari! It's the world's first open-concept zoo for nocturnal animals (it reminded us a LOT of being at the Animal Kingdom at Disneyworld except for it was dark!). We took a 45-minute tram ride through the zoo. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures to share because you're not allowed to use a flash and my sad, little point-and-shoot digital camera isn't good for night pictures :-( Anyway, all of the animals were active so it was well worth the money! We saw hippos, elephants, giraffes, zebras, hyenas, deer, and countless other animals that were completely new to me. Once the tram ride was over, we headed over to the "Creatures of the Night Show" and then spent a few minutes walking the paths through the zoo. For me, the walking path ended up being the best part of the night. We got to see a HUGE tiger with only a glass wall separating us. This particular tiger spent at least 20 minutes sitting right next to the glass, looking directly into our eyes. Since it was 10 p.m. and nearly everyone was gone, we had the tiger completely to ourselves! We even caught feeding time! A zoo keeper dropped food down for the tiger and it literally ate just a few feet away from us. I've never seen anything like it so close before. We were both completely mesmerized by the beauty of the tiger! It was the perfect way to end a perfect date with the most perfect husband I could ever imagine. God has blessed me beyond words and I am forever thankful to Him for that! :-)Matt standing in front of the historic Raffles Hotel

A beautiful fountain on the grounds of the hotel

Just enjoying the hotel scenery - wishing we were actually guests!


The interior was SO cool!

The famous Singapore Sling. Totally delicious!

One final view of the front of the hotel

Ready to see what the Night Safari is all about...

The first thing we came to was a tribal show with fire breathers - really fun to watch!

Here we are on board the tram, ready to be on safari!

Once the safari was over we found this giant durian. I thought I'd take a picture so you can see what it truly looks like. Who knew such a fun looking fruit could smell so terribly bad?!

Without a flash, this was the only semi-clear picture I could get of the tiger. This was while it was sitting in the water. We didn't get any from what it was right next to us in the window.

Ok, one last thing! I just found out that my little sister, Brittni, who is 7 years old actually reads my blog and checks for updates all the time! So, to my favorite little follower, I wanted to say "Hi BLH, we love you and miss you a LOT!! Tell Mommy to send you over here!" ;-)