I am so lucky to be in Singapore now. As I already mentioned Singapore is a multicultural country and you can celebrate different holidays almost every day! ;D Tomorrow, for example, I'm going to Sentosa Island to celebrate Indian Festival of Colors (also known as a festival of love <3) - Holi. *feeling excited.
Now, however, I'm gonna share with you my experience of my first celebration of Chinese New Year (a year of Horse) and Chingay Holiday (which is usually celebrated 7 days after the Chinese New Year).
Chinese New Year is an important holiday in Singapore, where people invite each other to their houses, eat tangerines, enjoy fireworks, go out to China Town for food. We were invited to New Asian Bar , which was on 70th floor and offered a great view on Marina Bay Sands hotel and other amazing buildings of Singapore Downtown. (By the way, the architecture of the buildings here is really impressive because the weather stays the same - Singapore never experiences strong winds, frost, or whatever can damage buildings - that's why architects can experiment a lot with the shapes and height). We didn't stay there long - since it was quite crowded and we believed that we can find a better view on fireworks, so we decided to go to Marina Bay, where they had nice performances and a lot of lights and decorations. Pictures cannot describe all the things I see but anyway I uploaded some for you:
Chinese New Year Fireworks at Marina Bay
China Town, "lucky coins" and Horses
Buildings *_*
Later, I was invited by my friend - Eleonore, an exchange student from France to a Chingay Parade, holiday, widely celebrated in South East Asia as a procession of the Goddess of Mercy. From our dorm (also called College), we got free tickets, and were lucky to get seats in front of the prime-minister of Singapore - Lee Hsien Loong. The parade was very bright! The participants represented different Singapore organizations - university students, youth associations, association of ballerinas, representatives of different cultures like Japan, Korea, etc. who reside in Singapore. We enjoyed music, dances and fireworks. The theme of the parade -"One People", and the speech of the prime minister made me feel so patriotic haha, and honestly, I never feel like I'm an outsider when I'm here, no one does I guess :)
And here's another small celebration… of my Birthday. It was on Monday, February 10, and I'm so happy my friends shared this day with me, even though they had work/projects/sleep experiments, they anyway came!
More entries are coming soon: My Recess week in Thailand, My Classes, exams, projects and challenges, "Singapore safe by default or by design", "Feng Shui in Singapore", Life in Alice and Peter Tan Residence Hall, Palau Ubin trip, Zero Uncertainty Avoidance in Singapore, how come is it true? and many many more
