Alter Ego

we checked. It's an Ornate Box Turtle, and it is expensive. this particular species is currently selling online for USD 140!!!

the tortoise is still roaming freely in the sink, but surprisingly, it is rather toilet- trained. it pooped on a Cai Xin leaf. hahah. need to get him a proper house soon. i have always believed that tortoises bring good luck, more so when one appears out of the blue on your doorstep. how often do you open your door and find a pet there waiting for you? maybe it's more common in singapore, but people here dun just abandon pets like that, especially not without a note or a tank for the tortoise. we often see people giving out free puppies at Walmart. yifan keeps saying he wants one, but i am not too keen. after all, keeping pets like dogs are not cheap. so of course, i was happy when we got the tortoise, cos how difficult can it be to maintain one? i was wrong. the ornate box turtle is not the regular terrapin that people keep as pets. there are only very few in the world now, and it is not a recommended species for beginners. Oh no ! what have we gotten ourselves into? but i figured it was fate that brought the tortoise to us, so we should do our best to care for it, or rather him, cos yifan thinks it's a male.

it's been a long time since i last had a pet. and if i were to choose what kind of pet i want, it would definitely be a tortoise... so hey, things could never have turned out any better. but now that i know the box tortoise is not easy to care for, i am a little worried cos i dun want to kill him. my old Lollipop ate whatever veg we fed her, but mostly kangkong. this Box tortoise doesn't eat cai xin, so we fed him grapes instead. he also needs to bask in the sun, but i dun want mosquitoes around him, so looks like i'll have to move him near the window in the morning to get the morning sun, and then move him back in after that cos he will get dehydrated.