Chinese New Year In Singapore

Arab Street

Recently we visited Arab street on our day off. This is an area that has a lot material shops and Arab middle eastern style rugs and clothing shops. The streets are narrow and lined with old buildings in this part there is no big Mall. The contents of the shops flow out onto the streets and when you walk along the footpath it is like you are walking in and out of shops all of the time. There were some bargains to be had, but I had to take it from Ruth because it mainly involved stuff that I had little interest in.
In the middle of this area is the Sultan’s Mosque. This is the centre of the Singapore Muslim community. The Mosque dominates this part of town. This is open to the public when they aren’t praying in it, when they do have prayers it is interesting. It Starts with someone calling them all to pray. This is broadcast over loudspeakers from a tower in the Mosque. We could here it a couple of blocks away. People appear from all sorts of places all hurrying to prayers. The rest of the shops and markets go quiet. I noticed a number of taxis parked in the street with no drivers one was even left running. I imagine the drivers were Muslim and they too went in to pray. We had lunch at a little Morroccan restaurant, it was very tasty, the lunch for 3 people including drinks was only $15.00. It was very cheap and good quality.



The Lunar New Year



This weekend it has been the Chinese New Year, this meant public holiday for Half day Saturday and all day Sunday. The whole Island virtually shuts down. It was interesting to walk along Orchard Road with almost no shoppers around. We spent the Saturday evening watching Rugby with some other New Zealanders. There is a huge fireworks display at Midnight, but we didn’t get there. I was told it was spectacular and thousands of people come out to watch it. The fireworks are significant to the Chinese to ward off evil spirits. Most Chinese families also get together for a special dinner, the reunion dinner. There are a number of interesting customs that are a part of celebrating the Lunar New Year.



You can read more about these at:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year
http://www.educ.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/438/CHINA/chinese_new_year.html




We got together with a group of MASC new teachers and went out Shangri-La Hotel for High Tea. This is apparently a Singapore tradition. You arrive for a late lunch, and stay for about 3-4 hours drinking tea and eating from a range of tasty delights.
There over 100 different types of tea available. Some of the flavours are kind of interesting. The food available once again was amazing. I expected just cakes and scones but this had a range of different ethnic delights including sweets and savouries. There was even soups and carvery delights. It is buffet so you help yourself as you please. You are seated in huge armchairs around low coffee tables. Waitresses come round and serve you with tea. Because it was New Years Day we were entertained by a group of Lion Dancers. They arrive with a troupe of musicians playing drums and symbols. It is very loud and noisy to drive off the bad spirits and to bless us with prosperity for the coming year. Incidentally this year is the year of the pig and it is usually a good year for everyone. I was told that these Lion Dancers practice for the year and spend hours perfecting their skills. They certainly do some amazing tricks. They are strong flexible guys. High Tea was a fun thing to do, expensive, but a good treat. You can buy alcohol here but the drinks are very expensive, beer started at $15.00 a glass and Bubbles $22.00 a glass. The tea is part of the meal price.



Cycling East Coast Parks

Another activity we did during our days off at Chinese New Year was visit the East Coast parks. We got on the MRT and found our way to Bedok Station which is on the East-West line. From Bedok we took a taxi to the East Coast cycle centre. Here there is a Hawker centre, a bicycle centre where we hired bikes. There are cycle tracks that run up and down the beach with no cars. Because it was a public holiday there were loads of people out for a day at the beach. All along the beach there were hundreds of tents. and people enjoying the day. People seemed to swim in the sea, there were many big ships anchored out in front of the beach. The cycling was fun with the ride being flat, children on bikes being the main hazard. We rode out onto a Jetty where hundreds of people were fishing. They were catching fish. Most were small, what we would call sprats, these were going into buckets to be taken home to cook. Apparently they deep fry these hole. I am pleased they didn't try to fillet them!!! This ride was interesting and would be worth doing as a fun outing for a family. All along the rides there are food outlets and places to stop and enjoy water based activities. The bikes were in good condition and both Ruth and I found we were matched up for size. It did rain and we got quite wet but in Singapore that is not a problem because you dry quickly once it stops. This area of the island has well kept park grounds and gardens.

We have our first term break coming up in March. Its about three weeks away, Ruth and I have booked flights to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in Vietnam. These were under $400.00 return for both of us. To get in to Vietnam you have to have a Visa which you must apply for before you arrive in the country. This means visiting the Vietnamese Embassy and filling out a form, providing two passport photos, producing your passport and parting with $70.00 cash. You then go away for 5 days when you return to pick up your Visa you have to wait for an hour while they check up on your passport. All very simple really, except the Embassy is hidden away the middle of very expensive houses in a part of Singapore that very few people ever go to. We went by taxi, even the taxi driver managed to get lost for a while. We are really looking forward to our trip way. It will be an adventure, we are going with a group of other teachers so we will have some support. At the moment we want to visit the Meekong Delta which is done on boats, we also plan to spen a day at the tunnels the Viet Cong used during the war. We are told everything is cheap in Vietnam but the people are very poor. It is third world so we expect it will be an eye opening experience for us.

Howesit Singapore Adventures

Ruth helping a local to phone home.

Asian Elephant shifting logs.

Singapore Zoo
One of our first adventues out and about was a day spent at the Singapore zoo. This is a really cool place to visit. Allow a day and aim to arrive early. At 9:00 am the wash the elephants, we weren't that early. Throughout the day there are a number of shows that take place that are really worth seeing. We really enjoyed the elephant show. It involves the elephants and their keepers talking and demonstrating how the elephants were used for logging opertions throughout Asia. It is entertaining and highly informative.
As we wandered we were impressed by the oppeness of the zoo. we often felt like we were sharing the compounds of the animals. There is the opportunity to get close and enjoy so many animals. For us we found it useful to become aware of the animals from the Asian Rain forests, which is a strngth of this zoo.
Ruth had an interesting encounter with some of the monkeys that do roam freely throughout the zoo. She was texting one of our family at the side of the track when a monkey came right up to her and held the phone. It leaned over and attempted to read her text. For a long time it studied the phones holding it and turning it over. It did not try to take it away but showed a real interest in the phone.

Sungei Buloh

Great Egrets wading over mudflats at Sungei Buloh

Encouraged by our zoo adventure we visited a wetland santuary on the north western tip of Singapore. It is a series of ponds on a river estuary opening out into the Straits of Johor, with Malaysia clearly visble across the water. It is recognised as a site of ecological importance. There are a lot of migratory birds that pass through here each year. It is mainly mangrove forest. There were lots of wading birds here when we visited including Herons and Egrets. We were also lucky to see a sea eagle gliding high in the air. I was facinated by the monitor lizzards that live in the park, some of them are easily two metres long. The ones we saw were sunning themselves on the board walk or on mangrove tree trunks. They look so big and slow, but they swim through the water with ease.

These Monitor Lizards are an amazing size. Guess who gives way?

This is an interesting place to visit, it is as remote as Singapore gets so it it is not serviced by trains or busses. we went as a part of a private tour. It was even more interesting for us because it is a stopping place for some of the birds that migrate to MIranda near Thames.