Two weeks ago I was attempting to understand the train system in Singapore and traipsing through the city. I hadn’t acknowledged that Chinese New Year was that weekend and I managed to find myself in a country celebrating in so many ways.
The tidiness of Singapore was slightly disturbed by the celebrations. There were paper pineapples hanging everywhere, they were a sign for good luck and prosperity. In China Town itself, the clusters of small shop stalls were a bustle of people, colour and food. Before heading to the crazier part of town, we ate at a cheaper hawker’s hall, where the entirety of the phrase ‘Singapore is expensive’ was dashed out of the window.
Bright red was in abundance as were little children and babies dressed up in red kimonos and traditional clothes. The centre piece was an enormous likening to a dog (I thought it looked more like a fox) to celebrate the year of the dog. I’m interested in horoscopes and astrology but I’m not going to believe anything I read about the upcoming year for goats. Because I’m a goat. Attractive. Everything I read, bar one description, was negative, so I’m pretending it’s all made up when you read it on marketing material.
You can get food for as little as $4 at the hawker halls. A great contrast to the tourist areas charging exceptionally high prices for the same kind of food. I’d never had a need to go to Singapore and it’s interesting seeing somewhere I never thought I would. Especially catching the city during an auspicious week.
To continue the luck, I headed to the closest Buddhist Temple which is in China Town. This pagoda-style building was beautiful and stood because of its beautiful architecture. Before you enter you can lightly an incense stick for prayer and then go through to the inside afterwords. All in all, I’m lucky to have experience Chinese New Year in Singapore this year. If you can make it down for the Chinese new year during any year, I highly recommend it.
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