The Year of the Horse

Unless you live under a rock, you'll know that the Chinese New Year recently passed, with 2014 becoming the Year of the Horse. I missed my Australia Day public holiday so I was happy to find out that I had a five day weekend! Nerdy though I may be, I didn't want to spend the entire time studying so I visited a few events, namely the river hong bao festival at Marina Bay as well as the special exhibitions at Sentosa Island. 

Saloni and I went to the festival on its opening night (29th January). Running until the 8th February, this festival has plenty of street food, entertainment and Chinese fortunes to keep you entertained until the fireworks at midnight. After alighting at Bayfront MRT we crossed the helix bridge before I heard a familiar sound - there was a man (supposedly Aboriginal) playing the didgeridoo, mixed with techno music. My Canadian friend thought it was great while I on the other hand wondered why I'd left Australia if I still had to listen to that stuff here as well!

This system works well in theory: in practice, not so much! 

Fun fact: the hotel behind me is the first thing I saw in Singapore (I could see it from my window seat on the plane!)

I don't understand why this cart is pulling a massive bunch of, what seems to be, bok choy?  

Chinese zodiac: tiger. It's so cute - it reminds me of tigger! 

While I was waiting for the fireworks, I had sticky rice with mango and coconut milk - it was pretty good!

After eating really nice street food, we wandered over to watch the fireworks and headed back once they were over. I'm not sure why, but dealing with the crowds can be pretty tiring! Part 2 of our Chinese new year celebrations happened the following evening when we travelled to Sentosa Island. I haven't explored Sentosa much so I'd definitely like to go back, however what we did see was spectacular. After heading off in the afternoon, we were quite hungry once we arrived so we stopped for a snack. After exploring, the main part of the island for about an hour before sitting down to watch the fire-twirling performance by the 'Flaming Matrix', and aerial acrobatics from the Zhengzhou Star Acrobatics Troupe.

Coffee flavoured ice-cream

I'd like this much chocolate please!

This girl is spinning by her neck! Incredible. 

Apparently these girls started training for this at 6 or 7. 

Saw the dragon dance for good luck

If you'd like to see a video of the acrobats performing, you can head over to Saloni's blog here. You can also see the durian ice cream that we tried - it was horrible! It tasted the same as it smelt and if you've ever seen durian, you'll know what I mean. No wonder its illegal to carry durians on public transport!  I hope that you all have a happy and prosperous lunar new year. I'm not really a believer in the power of the new year, but I'll try most things once...