When the party's over.....

Over the last couple of weeks the River Hongbao has been on at Marina Bay. This is to celebrate Chinese New Year and people come from all over Singapore to see it. Beside it is the fairground and Sunday was it's last day (for this year). I thought I'd take the opportunity to take some photos of the aftermath and the ensuing clean-up operation. Something rather melancholy about seeing all the fantastic lanterns and decorations being set aside.

But there's always next year.....

Haw Par Villa

I'd never expected or desired to go to Haw Par Villa. It really didn't look like my kind of thing. But, as we have the in-laws here, all bets are off and my mother-in-law took a fancy to having a look-see. So on Monday morning we went. From all the reports/blog accounts I had read it looked pretty strange, utterly gaudy and totally bizarre. And rest-assured it is! On arrival you are greeted by two life-size Sumo wrestlers who stand guard on the edge of the 'park' (I say park because it's a bit of a struggle to know how to refer to it!). Behind them are some evil looking seals with crazy eyes.

Courtesy of http://www.loneleeplanet.com/

Let's just say it sets the scene for a walk through the fantasy world of the brothers Tiger Balm, Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par (and if you haven't tried their products then you really should!). The park follows the accounts of the Ten Courts of Hell in Chinese mythology involving (amongst many other things) the famous story of "The Journey to the West", also know as the legend of the Monkey King. Now, this particularly caught my attention because, as a child, I spent hours (well, it felt like it) watching the Japanese series, "Monkey Magic," on kids TV. At the time I didn't even realise it was badly dubbed from Japanese to English, much less that it was Chinese mythology based on a true life pilgrimage and the adventures of Triptaka, one of the stars of the TV series. Sufficed to say, the characters portrayed at Haw Par Villa are not quite as friendly looking as their televisual counterparts. For example, this is Pigsy. Scary huh?

See the other photos on Flickr

Anyway, you can go away and read about this show for yourselves as probably 99% of the readers of this post will never have heard of it! But I loved it and this brought fresh colour to it in no uncertain terms.

Another surprising thing to come out of the visit was that once I had posted my photos of this weird and wonderful place on Flickr, I found that one of Huffington Post's blogs had picked up on a photo I took and had made it photo of the day on Gadling.com (a travel blog)! It's a photo of a series of giant masks that adorn a wall right at the back of the park.
This is the image in question. I must admit, I do quite like it as it seems a pretty good visual representation of everything I saw that morning.....

Chinatown

Having just sat down for some lunch after an arduous few minutes buying all manner of Chinese New Year gifts for the nieces, nephews and God-children back home, I get a chance to do what I really enjoy and people watch. Chinatown is particularly good for this especially during the run up to CNY when it is busier than usual (although not the mayhem that will ensue this weekend, the last before CNY). The English couple in front if me have just been brought two large bottles of Tiger beer and are staring at them in astonishment (the bottles are 633ml each, more than a pint). The business of ordering lunch looks a hard task too. Menus are large, with a raft of unfamiliar looking food (although all printed in English with Chinese subtitles) and some of the items are apparently live.
'Euw, I couldn't eat anything living',
'It'll be dead by the time you eat it,' I interject, 'don't worry'.
They seemed to take this in the spirit it was meant although when the fish, still flapping in it's bag, was presented for their approval they did blanche slightly. The panic is starting to rise slightly I sense and a discussion ensues about the merits of ordering sweet and sour pork. The spring rolls arrive and much to their relief look 'just like the ones from the Chinese at home'.

Phew, the fries have also arrived. Just in time, it was all starting to look a bit 'Eastern' for my liking.
I must say the white faces and voices (mine amongst them of course), are quite prevalent today. Last Saturday the mayhem was very definitely in favour of the locals. We we're warned by one that it was a human traffic jam in there. He wasn't wrong. This was the evening for Singaporeans to do their CNY shopping. I found it quite enjoyable, however, I wasn't trying to shop.
So, remarkabley the beers have both been sunk and they've just asked for another. I think they're starting to get into the spirit of things. That's the thing about Singapore. It never takes long to relax into it if you give it a chance.

posted from Bloggeroid

Chinese New Year - It's still going you know!

Well, if I'm honest, I'm feeling a bit lazy which means I really shouldn't be blogging right now. However, it has been quite an eventful, cultural week all-in-all. Starting with a very nice Chinese New Year's Eve meal with new friends. A good traditional Chinese meal starting with throwing (with aid of chopsticks), the food in the air. This is accompanied with some shouting but I cannot remember what (I'm sure someone will let me know The higher the throw, the better your prospects for the coming year. I don't know if this works for random Westerners too but it's worth a try! Now, at this point it's worth saying that my photos of proceedings were rubbish so I have taken the liberty of pinching some from Pam Ha (who we met that night, along with hubby Kevin, both from New Zealand). Thanks Pam! The food was beautifully prepared and presented and tasted

Before the toss!

After the toss!

gorgeous. All washed down with a glass of Champers and of course beer. Courses included the traditional full chicken (meaning prosperity and togetherness of family) along with hard boiled eggs (meaning fertility, not sure I'll be needing those, but they tasted very nice). There were some very tasty meatballs (which I believe represents reunion). And then the traditional chocolate cake. Well, I'm not sure it was traditional, but it tasted great! After all that it was great to just chat round the table and enjoy some new company. Aussies (our hosts), Brits and Kiwis all chatting like we'd known each other for ages and not a sporting quip in sight (well, I'm sure that last bit isn't true, but it's nice to think it could happen).
We left the party happy, full and hopefully more prosperous than we've ever been!
Next day (Chinese New Year's Day) was quiet. I think there were probably a few sore Far Eastern heads about. I decided to take D to the Chinese Gardens to see what was happening there. T and Z decided to chill out and hang at home. So me and D set off on the MRT on a beautifully sunny, warm day to see what we could see. Turned out to be a great idea. Only the second time I had ventured to the gardens and I hadn't appreciated quite how expansive they were the first time around. The first thing we see as we stepped of the train (rather unexpectedly bearing in mind where we were), was a whole posse of Indians playing cricket. It was kind of like seeing Hackney marshes in the UK with all the guys playing football on a Sunday. Although the thing with this lot was there was a certain amount of style and technique with which they bowled and batted.

Clean bowled

Clearly enjoying themselves I left them to venture into the Gardens themselves. Red. It was all red. And yellow. Quite an awful lot of yellow too. Lots of lucky colours. First stop was the towering pagoda as we entered the gardens. A lot of people standing around, photos being taken, laughs being had. And then I realised, much to my surprise, most of these people were Indian too. I still don't know why so many visitors were Indian, although I suspect that they lived close by. Having said that one group of guys had come down from Johor for the long weekend and were busy enjoying themselves (as well as trying to take photos of D, not a chance, he is not impressed with strangers taking photos any more. The general cry is of "NO, only daddy takes photos!". Good boy!). Anyway, D decided that climbing the seven stories up to the top of the pagoda was feasible so we did. Normally he wants to be carried but he was off like a flash, eschewing all attempts at photography along the way. The views from the were fantastic and it was actually one of the clearer days I had seen for a while (as well as one of the sunniest).

I would comment on the colours and the flags and the (fake, I'm afraid), blossom on the trees but I think the easiest and laziest way to let you know what it looked like is by posting some more photos! So here you are! The day was much like New Year's Eve with much humility and good wishes. We had a thoroughly nice time just wandering. Even D couldn't stay in his buggy with the promise of fish and turtles to be seen.

The deep red flags blew and flapped in a pleasant and refreshing breeze. Just what was needed to blow away the cobwebs from the night before. D and I ate the most enormous lumps of ice-cream for only a dollar each (D paying with his newly acquired Hong Bao money. Well chuffed he was). We passed on the 'live' tortoise and turtle museum (that by all accounts is quite a pull). It does makes you wonder about the fact that they make a point of calling it 'live'. I would imagine if the artefacts on show got much slower that you would indeed have trouble calling it 'live', but I suspect that the real reason is more to do with the penchant of people in this region to feast on these slow moving fellas and that live is a bit of a novelty.
To top it all we even managed to miss the rain by a whisker as we got back on the MRT bound for Dover station.

See more photos at Flickr

Piccys

I keep meaning to post some photos but always seem to blog on my phone. So, here we are.......

Mum and D

Boy on his b irthday bike

Getting the hang of it!

Z watching D

Enjoying the day

That's my drink

Chinese chequers in Chinatown.

Not much action at the table.

Hand-painted name plaques in Chinatown

T enjoying watching the world go by in Chintown

My biggest fans

Backstreet Chinatown

Night time with Pinnacle@Duxton in the background

Click on any of the photos to see the larger versions......