2016 Lunar New Year Decorations at Chinatown

Saturday night, the night before Lunar New Year's Eve.  Chinatown was packed with visitors looking at the decorations and doing last minute shopping.  The photo below was taken along South Bridge Road.

The key decoration was along Eu Tong Sen Street.  This year, the monkeys were rather small to make a visual impact.

For 2015 Lunar New Year decoration, see 2015 Lightup




Happy Year of the Monkey!

Countdown 2016 at Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery

I was back at the Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery for the countdown after 2 years.  This year a new gong was installed and located outside the main hall.

  

Venerable Sik Kwang Sheng gave words of encouragement and stroke the gong 108 times when 2016 arrives....

Hope 2016 would be a great year for everyone!

SEA GAMES - experience the competitions live!

The 28th SEA Games has ended and Singapore has done incredibly well.  I managed to attend a few live events and had good memories of them....

At the Singapore Expo, wushu (Chinese martial arts) competition

And at the Singapore Indoor Stadium....

Opening Ceremony of the 28th South East Asian Games in Singapore

There was huge anticipation for the opening ceremony of the 28th SEA Games on 5 June 2015 at the new National Stadium.  Singapore was supposed to host the Games in 2013 but the Sports Hub was not ready then.  Well, better late than never.  The photo below showed the combined band performance during the pre-event segment.

The Big Singapore Welcome opened the Ceremony proper.

Cavalia: Experiencing the performance by feel and touch

On 27 Aug, some visually impaired children were invited to experience hands-on Cavalia, a production currently staging at the gigantic white tent next to the Marina Bay Sands.  Cavalia is a multi-disciplinary show which feature riders, aerialists, acrobats, musicians and of courses, the horses.  

It was a good initiative by the Presenter and the Cavalia team to create a special experience for these children.  To begin the journey, the children, teachers and parents were first brought to the farrier's station where they had the chance to touch and feel the tools of making a horse shoe.  Most children were able to overcome their initial shyness and participate in the activities.


At one corner, the children smelt and touched the hay, grains and fruits fed to the horses, thereby understanding the diet of these stallions.   A few students from the Lighthouse School were game enough to ride on the saddle.

Mid Autumn Festival lightup at Chinatown

This year's Mid Autumn Festival (or Moon Festival) lights are up at Eu Tong Sen Street.  The Mid Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month of the Chinese calendar.

There are not many specific places celebrating the Festival in Singapore.  Besides the light up along Eu Tong Sen Street, the other place would be the Chinese Garden in Jurong.

The decorations are generally beautiful to look at.  It would be great if the buildings along the street could be lighted up so as to create the right festive mood. These photos were taken around 10 pm and you can see that the area looked rather deserted.

Moon Cake and lantern time.....

Singapore Garden Festival at the Garden By the Bay

This was my first Singapore Garden Festival, which used to be at Suntec and now moved to Garden By the Bay this year. I also took the opportunity to visit the Flower Dome, where the orchid display was held.  On a weekday, there were many local and foreign visitors, including school groups.

There was a queue to enter the orchid exhibition area but fortunately we did not have to wait long. One suggestion to the organiser would be to spread out the displays as it was rather cramped inside. The orchids were of different varieties and beautiful to look at.

Hari Raya 2014 Light Up at Geylang Serai

The lights were up at Geylang Serai, the place where the food and goods stalls were concentrated.  This photo was taken along Sims Avenue.

There were more stalls this year, mostly selling food items, carpets or clothings.

A Tale of 2 Sun Yat Sen Memorial Halls

It was Good Friday and a group of us decided to visit the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall.  A few of my friends had never visited this place before and I wanted to  visit this refurbished building.  

The colonial style building and the statue of Dr Sun Yat Sen greeted us when we entered the compound. Sun Yat Sen played an instrumental role in the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, and was the first president and founding father of the Republic of China. 

From Left: Teo Eng Hock, Sun Yat Sen, Tan Chor Nam

From the National Library’s resouces, the villa was built sometime in the 1880s by Chinese merchant Boey Chuan Poh, rumoured for his mistress Bin Chan.  The villa chaged hands and eventually Teochew businessman Teo Eng Hock acquired the house and renamed it Wan Qing Yuan (晚晴园.  Teo Eng Hock later offered Sun Yat Sen the use of the villa. 

In 1906, during Sun's two-week stay in Singapore, he formed a local branch of the T'ung Meng Hui (“Chinese Revolutionary League”) with co-founders Tan Chor Nam as chairman, and Hsu Tzu Lin, Teo Eng Hock and his nephew Lim Nee Soon as office bearers. 

Chinese New Year Light Up at Chinatown 2014

Horses galloping along Eu Tong Sen Street - this was the design of this year's Lunar New Year light-up at Chinatown, to ushering Year of the Horse.

I personally like the day time effect of these horses.



On the other end of Chinatown, another set of horses along South Bridge Road.

Chinatown was bustling with people shopping with Chinese New Year goodies.

Talking about China New Year, we cannot not talk about Yu Shang, the prosperous raw fish dish.

We had this meal at Red Star Restaurant, located at the fringe of Chinatown.



Let's hope for a prosperous and healthy 2014!

Sundown 2013

The Sundown run has been around for a few years and this was the first time I participated in it.  The idea of running at midnight was something new.

 From the moment that I stepped onto the train, I saw more and more people (with their running gear) heading towards the Promenade MRT Station and towards the F1 Pit Building.

Not a fit runner, I entered the 10 km race.

The route started from the pit building, past the Nicol Highway, turned towards the former People's Association Building and back to the starting point.

The route was generally ok, except at a few areas where there was a human traffic jam.  This was partly due to construction work along the way.

I managed to complete it within 1 hour 29 minutes.  Hopefully I could lower it to 1 hr 15 minutes next time round.

Chinese New Year - River Hong Bao 2013

The Lunar New Year is coming to an end.    And for the last bog on this topic, I would write about the River Hong Bao held at the Floating Platform next to the Esplanade. The picture on the left showed the entrance to the event.

One of the key exhibits at the event would be the 12 zodiacs.  Being Year of the Snake, the biggest statue was dedicated to it.

River Hong Bao is an annual event celebrating the Lunar New Year.  Besides the static display, there would be performances and also food stalls.   Photo showed the performing stage but I did not catch the performance.

And of course, the biggest attraction would be the God of Fortune.

This year, Lee Foundation sponsored a mural on fishes.  In Chinese, nian nian you yu, literarlly means "every year has fish", which sounds like "every year has abundance".  In Mandarin, "fish" has the same pronounciation as "surplus" or "abundance".

While we have abundance of fishes, the pandas seemed to be under nourished.













River Hong Bao has been held many years and it seemed to need a break through.  I felt that the food stalls need to be present in a more creative way, as part of the visitors' experience.  In addition to the main presentation stage, there could be secondary stages or roving performers to create more interaction and excitement.  Here's to next year's event.