Before going to school, Ig was wondering why I was not dressed for work. When I explained to him that I was going to school with him, said "Daddy go work? No... Daddy go school!"
We arrived in school and sat down for breakfast together with his friends. Here's a picture of him with his friend Nita in the background.
After the bus had arrived, we board the bus, and I somehow managed to convince him to wear the seat belt. While we were on the bus, it started to rain. Ms Cindy starts to lead the children in singing "Old MacDonald had a farm". When it came to "and on his farm he had some..." Ignatius promptly should out "fish!" but Ms Cindy said fish don't make sounds, so she chose cow instead. Anyhow, the children were certainly having fun singing at the top of their voices and even the rain couldn't dampen their spirits.
After a lot of rousing singing, we finally arrived at the underwater world in Sentosa. After we alighted from the bus, Ignatius and his good friend Xu Kai (as Ms Rowena mentioned while on the bus) gleefully walked hand in hand towards the entrance of the underwater world.
While waiting for the other busload of children to arrive, we looked at the turtles, fishes and rays on display. Here's Ignatius climbing up on the railing to get a better look at the rays.
While the children were fascinated and asked lots of questions while the parents took the opportunity to try to snap some photos. We tried to get them to pose together, but, as expected, the kids just wandered all over the place, as can be seen in the following picture - which we can see (from left to right) Daniel, Kotoko and Ignatius.
Upon entering the underwater world, our first visit was to the touch pool. Somehow the children managed to climb up and hold on to the side of the glass, pointing to all the fishes excitedly. Soon the excited children started to splash water at each other and Ignatius' shirt got really wet. In the following we see Xu Kai, Nita, Daniel and Ignatius looking at the fish in the touch pool.
We then proceeded to the feeding pool for rays. The children also climbed on top excitedly. The rays, having been conditioned to be fed by humans, were all swimming around vigorously. Frankly it was a bit scary, and we were a bit reluctant to touch or feed them the first time round. However, after the guide explained that the stings have been removed, some of us proceeded to buy some fish bits to feed them, and the rays literally ate out of our hands.
After that, we proceeded for a tour of the underwater world displays. We saw the nautilus, the different kinds of crabs (the spider crabs left a very deep impression on Ignatius), sharks, jacks, grouper, dugong and not forgetting the sea angels. The children were all very excited, but the I guess the level of excitement never really exceeded that at the touch pools.
Soon after, the we gathered in a meeing room and the guides told us more about the fishes. We were introduced to the names and characteristics of some of the fishes and the children were asked simple questions about identifying, classifying the marine animals and the uses of some of their features.
After asking some questions about the Nautilus, Angel Fish and Surgeon fish, we came to the humpack wrasse and the instructor asked the class :
"Does anyone know what is the use of the hump on its head?"
Immediately a hand shot up and a boy promptly replies :
"For humping other fish !"
Amidst some stifled laughter, the guide proceeded to explain the actual reason, which is (unbelievably) to separate the 2 sides of the head so that it can look in front and behind and avoid predators. Here's a of the class - try to spot Ignatius!
Moreover the dolphin performances are quite far away (compared to the sealion performance at the zoo), so he didn't seem too excited about the show, though he clapped along at the appropriate moments. Here are some pictures - try spotting the dolphins!
After the dolphin show, we had a lunch of nuggets and fries accompanied by Milo on the benches by the lagoon. Here's Ignatius tucking into his delicious lunch!
After lunch, we proceeded to take bus back to school and we went home soon after. The visit has certainly left a deep impression on him, and for many days after, his favourite topic was that of marine animals and fishes that he saw at the underwater world!
