Marine Life Park - 5 Dec 2012

Welcome to Resorts World Sentosa! It has changed so much from our last visit. Marine Life Park is the latest attraction, opened only on 22-Nov-12. The park houses the S.E.A. Aquarium and the Adventure Cove Waterpark. 

We went to the S.E.A. Aquarium, the world's largest aquarium. It came in a 2 in 1 package, inclusive of the entrance to the Maritime Experiential Museum, also a new attraction. 

The journey of Admiral Zheng He from China to Africa totaled 7 voyages, with an entourage of up to 300 ships and a crew of nearly 30,000 men for almost 3 decades. Didn't know that it was such a big scale expedition.

Full size replica of the bow of Zheng He's 15th century ship.

Bustling ports along the maritime Silk Route were recreated, complete with interactive activities.

The aquarium was on the floor below the museum. It houses more than 100,000 marine animals covering over 800 species and held about 55 million litres of water. Indeed a major engineering feat - it's kept running with the help of a huge filtration system using 124 major pumps.

A walkway to bring you to an underwater voyage - beginning from the seas of S.E.A to Africa, and the marine life and environments.  The key highlights were the ocean gallery, shipwreck habitat and the shark seas. Equally as eye-catching as the fishes was the coral reefs, no wonder they're often called the 'rainforest of the seas'. 

Friendly sea stars (not starfish we're told) at the touch pool.

This was new to us - the white flounder, a flatfish specie. It swam like a  sting ray but has features of a fish. A flounder camouflages itself by lying on the bottom of the floor, as a result, the two eyes are on the side which faces up!

Boys were thrilled at the touch pool.

Climax was of course the Open Ocean gallery that has the largest viewing panel in the world. Manufactured entirely of acrylic (a glass-like material but stronger & lighter), it measures 36m wide, 8.3m tall and 12m deep!

Spectacular size, yes, cos it promises the world's largest window to the ocean. There were some fish, sharks and rays but not so many species in such a big tank. Maybe they would add on in future.

Some marine animals included the unusual guitarfish, the Emperor Nautilus, the living fossil and colonies of eels that burrow into sand (each eel lives in a single burrow which it rarely ever leaves - so sad!) and sea jellies (not jellyfish we're told)...

School of diamond trevally that only swam in one particular corner of the tank.

Not acrobats, but fishermen on stilts in Sri Lanka

Quite a few exhibits of shipwrecks..

Shark seas - quite awesome to see so many sharks together, but hope they would add on more species.

After exiting from the oceanarium, you would come back to a different section of the maritime museum.  There's an exhibition on 'Pirates of the East'. We've heard of Blackbeard, but how many have heard of the Asian pirates, (including those from Sarawak). Below: a reconstruction of a 9th century Arab Dhow.

The ancient Chinese believed that giraffe was a mystical animal, so they took the trouble to ship them back. Was not paying attention why they included rhino, perhaps the same reason as giraffe. Besides being an explorer, Zheng He was also famous as a heroic pirate hunter!

Museum ended at the maritime archaeology gallery - showcasing artefacts from shipwrecks and some pirate weapons. Boys were enjoying themselves in the interactive panel - creating and auctioning their pottery creation. 

The Universal Studio - KIV for next visit.

We've lunch at the Malaysian Food Street and I must say, the food was authentic and at very reasonable price, not the pricing you would expect in a resort. We didn't get to see the dolphins this round, maybe that's why we're given food vouchers instead, but they should be there in 2013!