The Pizzazzy

It was the last day of the Lantern festival. And since we had already been to Chinese Garden I wanted to catch the excitement at China Town. This gave me one more reason to visit China town.

On reaching there we realized that we had no idea of China Town and what to expect there. We checked out the map and followed the direction for Pagoda street as it sounded so Chinese. Pagoda street reminded me of the Hong Kong lane in Pune where we used to buy trinkets during College days.

Typical 3 for $10 shops of Chinese goods. I was amazed at all the gift items stocked there and picked up a few items. We followed the crowd and came to the street which had some lanterns on display. The streets were beautifully decorated with small lanterns and some theme lanterns as well.

After walking around for some time taking pictures we realized that we were hungry. More because we had seen one Chinese eating joint at the road side in Pagoda street. The food was really good and we had our hearts fill with Chicken Satay and peanuts sauce, Chicken fried rice, Diced chicken in a hot plate, some chicken soup. One of the best eating experience so far in Singapore.

Check out the snaps.

Lanterns on the street

A lantern tree at the square

The pagoda street

Array of lanterns near pagoda street

Close up of Lanterns

Theme showing people playing chinese checkers

Theme showing a group of people playing musical instruments

The chicken satay with sweet peanut sauce

The diced chicken with oyster sauce in a hot plate

Chicken fried rice

Chicken soup with vegetables

After coming back home I checked the internet for China Town and realized that we missed the lantern carnival. So, this was the result of not researching beforehand. Anyways! It was fun and we plan to take our friends and family to this place to see the temples and check out the shops when they visit us.

One thing I like about Singapore is the MRT. For some of the readers who just uttered what the hell is that? It is the Mass Rapid Transit I mean the trains that is widely used to commute in Singapore besides the popular SMRT buses.

The reason behind my liking MRT is that it makes me independent in a sense. I don’t have to rely on others to get some place on time. Or neither have to endure cutting lanes, honking at angry drivers the way it was back in India. So, MRT is one of the things thats cool about Singapore. I can practically time the total travelling time.

It takes 8 minutes to reach the station. Around 10 minutes to get to Tanah Merah interchange. And another 5 minutes to reach Expo station. From there another 7 minutes walk to office. See, total travelling time is 30 minutes. I don’t have to rush for this. I have been told by my colleagues and friends that 30 minutes is a good travel time, and one can stay anywhere in Singapore the travel to work will always be equal to or more than 30 minutes. Okay before this 30 minutes starts sounding like a mantra lets get back to my love for MRT.

I can’t take the cabs here. There is something about it that makes me motion sick. It could be the driving style, abrupt halts, or may be that it is compulsory to wear the seat belts. I can not put my finger on any thing particular but I avoid it.

The MRT is so smooth and convenient that I can use the time to read a book or even write pieces of my posts. Yes, it does not make me giddy to read or write in a moving MRT. Amazing right.

Today I heard some expats at the station. First guy told the second “Singaporeans are aggressive travellers. During rush hours you need to push to get into the train before the doors are closed”. The second guy agreed and said “Yes, back home we are more aggressive drivers”. I silently added that in India we are both aggressive travellers as well as aggressive drivers.

Although it is true and I am also quite aggressive but I am none of the above two categories. The only driving I do is driving people crazy. And only travelling would be being driven around by others.

Anand always says that I am born in the wrong country and I should have been born in Britain as the Queen herself. Because back home I couldn’t do many things like taking public transports, or navigating him on our holidays by reading the map in a moving vehicle.

He was never able to understand how a person can feel nauseated or giddy doing these simple things. In fact I even wikied “motion sickness” for him and told him the scientific reasons behind it and how it is perfectly normal to be suffering from it.

In our recent trip to Phuket the Thai lady at the travel desk of our hotel was very funny. She knew relatively better English but when we were discussing ferry to a near by island I told her that I have motion sickness and she gave me this funny look and said probably you should rest in your room. And I realized that she was stuck on the word motion and thought I was suffering from diarrhoea, dysentery or something l’that. After that I explained her what is motion sickness all the while trying to keep a straight face.

Point is for anyone who thinks motion sickness can be treated by being strong mentally and blah blah is absurd. It can only be treated by habit of motion and compulsive travelling in good quality transports which are smooth and efficient and convenient. If we have something close to MRT in our very own Pune, I would be delighted to travel in them proudly and no more complain of feeling giddy. Till that day I am happy and healthy being driven around by others in India. And while in Singapore, let me enjoy the MRT.

Lantern Festival is a mid-autumn festival also known as moon-cake festival. Its a showcase of beautiful arrays of lanterns. Every year in Singapore this festival is held in the Chinese Garden.

This festival started on the 5th September and will go on till 30th September. So this Sunday me and Anand went to the Chinese Garden. From the MRT we could see the beautiful seven storeyed Pagoda lit beautifully. In the backdrop of the twilight the lit lanterns presented a spectacular view. We decided to take a round of the whole garden, click snaps and then catch the shows at the center stage, and then after dark again do a round of clicking snaps and hit home.

This years theme is “Magical Ocean” and true to the theme we could see assortment of lanterns based on water: mermaid, lotus, polar bears, penguins, fishes, corals, sting rays, sea horses. Along with some mythological chinese characters and dragons etc. It was quite an eyeful.

I was most excited about the free lanterns that we collected at one of the counters. I lit them as suggested by the lady behind the counter and carried them around till the candles burnt out.

Now some facts and figures, there are around 5000 plus individual lanterns making up an array of 23 breath taking displays. The whole set up cost around 1.2 million SGD. 45 professional lantern makers from the Sichuan and Zighong provinces of China were in Singapore for the whole of August and they manually constructed each of the lanterns. This year’s festival also aims to enter the Singapore Book of Records for the most number of marine lanterns in an event. Troops and famous bands are performing and also there is fireworks display. I heard the deejay mentioning that Tuesday would be fireworks display at 9. Going to miss that.

The garden also houses some shops for some traditional paper lanterns etc and some food stalls where one can taste some chinese delights. Check out some snaps from the festival.

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