Don't Do It

When we decided on Singapore as the hub of our Southeast Asia vacation earlier this year, we finally had something to get excited about and plan, other than some temple time in Cambodia, that is, which was the main point of this trip. Oddly enough, one of the first reactions we got from a number of people about our choice of destinations was "don't break the law; don't they cane people there?"

Why...yes they do cane people. And we had exactly the same thought. 

Now, ordinarily, the last thing we would think about doing on a trip is breaking the law, but Singapore has some mighty strict laws so there were definitely some obscure and seemingly benign rules that we could easily and inadvertently find ourselves on the wrong side of. Did you know chewing gum is illegal there? It is. And it's not the only thing. Who knows what else is forbidden. I'm don't know what the punishment is for chewing gum in Singapore but I know for damn certain I didn't want to find out.

So why did people (including the two of us) have this reaction? Well, in September of 1993, an American teenager named Michael Fay decided to have some fun in Singapore and spent a few days stealing some road signs and vandalizing some cars. Good fun? Maybe for some. Good idea? Mmm...probably not. Not for him. Not in Singapore. He was convicted of violating Singapore's Vandalism Act. The punishment? Six lashes with a cane. 

Some people in the United States freaked out. Corporal punishment? For a little minor theft and a little damage to some cars? How dare Singapore do this to an American citizen? And just a teenager at that.

Hey...don't do the crime if you can't do the time. His reduced sentence (four lashes) was carried out on May 5, 1994. I'm guessing he never stole any more signs or vandalized any more cars again. At least not in Singapore, anyway. Singapore don't play with crimes.

Now, to be clear here, I am not equating chewing gum to vandalizing cars and I am confident in stating (without actually looking it up) that the Singapore judicial system doesn't impose caning sentences for chewing gum. But gum IS, without question, prohibited. It's on the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority list of prohibited items to bring into the country.

Know what else is on that list? I mean I'm sure you don't so I'll tell you: concealed weapons; all manner of nicotine products including snuff, chewing tobacco and e-cigarettes; obscene publications; endangered species; controlled drugs; and seditious materials. To me, gum is clearly the odd man (or odd thing, I guess) out on this list. Nonetheless, we discarded any gum (read: contraband) we had in our possession before we boarded our plane for SIN at Haneda Airport just outside of Tokyo. No rule breaking for us. Not in Singapore. No way!

So I don't know if the hype before this trip made us extra sensitive to rules in Singapore, but I'm sure it helped us pay attention to a lot of posted signs in a way that we wouldn't have if Michael Fay hadn't been caned 30 years ago. There are a lot of rules in that city all over the place. I'm sure there are in any major city, but we looked extra hard I am sure and we found some guidelines that we wouldn't necessarily see at home.

Like what, you may ask?

Like no durian (that famously stinky tropical custardy fruit that some say smells like rotten meat) on the subway system. This wasn't a surprise to us necessarily because we had been told that durains are forbidden on public buses in Zanzibar when we were there last year. I do think it's interesting that the no durians rule on the subway is posted next to no smoking, no eating/drinking and no flammable goods and that all three of those offenses carry fines but having a durian doesn't. I guess just don't walk around with durians is the message. 

There were certainly lots of other rules posted everywhere.

No admittance. No chasing the otters. No feeding the monkeys. No jaywalking. Although actually, it's STRICTLY no jaywalking. Fines for not clearing your tables at the hawker markets. No fighting (or "voluntarily causing hurt", if you prefer). No exercising in groups (individual exercise seemed to be fine). And definitely, definitely, no gum, although we didn't actually see any signs prohibiting gum. Or spitting, which is also apparently illegal, although I'm not sure why you would spit in Singapore because it's so hot there I would think you'd need every but of saliva to hydrate your body.

There were some scary signs there, too, like those that had images of a person with their hands up with another person pointing a rifle at them. These signs prohibited photography of the building behind the fence that the sign was attached to and also directed us to not even take a picture of the sign itself. And not wishing to incur the wrath of the Singapore government (coming home un-caned matters to me), I did not take pictures of those signs.

By the way, I think our favorite rule from this trip is the "Exercising in groups is not permitted in this area" sign. I think every time we have been out in a park or just on the street since we came back from Singapore and we've see a bunch of people jogging or doing yoga or whatever, we ask each other if exercising in groups is permitted wherever we happen to be.

You know what we didn't see in Singapore? Cops. I guess everyone knows how to behave, maybe? The citizens of Singapore must have normalized law-abiding behavior to preserve harmony in their communities in a way that most American towns or villages or cities never would. I love that. The yearning for absolute and complete freedom to do anything at any time even if it threatens or makes others uncomfortable is subjugated so that society as a whole is more orderly, safer and good for everyone. I'm a fan. Take notice, America.

But seriously, we honestly didn't see really any police presence at any normal time in our time in Singapore. Sure, there were cops hanging around the subway system during Lunar New Year's Eve (and the early morning of Lunar New Year's Day) but they seemed to be there more to direct people as to where to go than to arrest folks for crimes. And yes, we also saw some (again in the subway system) before and after the opening ceremony of the River Hongbao event at Gardens By The Bay. But that was it. 

Now, I have no doubt that people are watching. Just check out the picture below taken at an entrance to one of Singapore's subway stations. There are plentiful cameras around and I think everyone there knows they are at risk of being on tape at any moment. You might think it's sinister or big brother-y but I didn't feel it. I like law and order. I like rules, even if it means we have to give up chewing gum. I have no issue with anything that Singapore permits or prohibits. But then again, we weren't looking to (and didn't) break any laws. No caning for us!

Ride Across The River

Before we started looking into how we would spend six or seven days in Singapore, I had this vision of the whole place just being one giant, continuous city with no breaks from buildings or roads or sidewalks or anything. I imagined something like Coruscant in the Star Wars movies, a planet covered entirely by city, although in this case just a tiny, 283.5 square mile portion of our particular planet. I'm not sure why I had this impression. Maybe it's the fact that Singapore is both a city and a country unto itself and it's supposed to be super modern? I know...it doesn't make complete sense. Or any sense really.

So understandably, when we started scratching the surface on Signapore, we found out there was a lot more to the place than just man-made stuff. There often is in cities. I mean, I've been to New York City I don't know how many times and for sure there's more to that place than just built stuff, and I'm not just referring to the giant park in the middle of Manhattan. That place is dotted with little green oases all over Manhattan and beyond.

Singapore is no different than New York City in that regard. Like I said, my initial attitude on this sort of stuff didn't make any sense at all. As we started adding must sees to our Singapore itinerary and to break up our "city time", we started adding some parks to the list.

We ultimately planned a lot of park time, including excursions on the main island of Singapore to their Botanic Gardens (largest collection of orchids in the world!); the TreeTop Walk in MacRitchie Park (very long and mostly disappointing); and their iconic Gardens By The Bay (feeling a post dedicated to just that park coming on soon). But despite all that we also felt an urge to go someplace wilder and maybe even leave the main island and get onto one of the smaller islands that dot the perimeter of Singapore Island. We settled on a place called Pulau Ubin.

On the Sensory Trail.

Pulau Ubin is an island located in the strait between Singapore and the mainland of Malaysia to the north. It's a former granite quarry site that supplied the stone that built a lot of old Singapore. Today, it is mostly devoted to public use as a green space. The majority of the island is covered in jungle and other natural landscapes that provide a home for birds, mammals, reptiles and other sorts of creatures. 

Oh, and there are some humans that live there too. 

 

The people on the island are a bit of throwback community, living in houses using somewhat traditional construction methods (although admittedly mixed with modern materials) with no running water or hard wired electricity (power is provided by generators). By throwback I mean 1960s throwback, not centuries-old throwback. 

The main settlement on Pulau Ubin is on the south side of the island near the jetty where tourists like us and folks that have business with the community are dropped off every day. If you visit, you'll find stores, restaurants, some taxis, lots of bicycles for rent as well as houses and temples used by the local population.

The major appeal for us to get to Pulau Ubin was natural and specifically wildlife and (surprise, surprise) a little birdwatching. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to see how people were living there and building shelter for themselves. I am still an architect, after all. 

Bumboats (top) and the jetty and gateway to Pulau Ubin.

We hit Pulau Ubin first thing in the morning. We figured we'd get in and out before it got really hot. And by the time the day came to visit this island, we knew that it gets hot every day in Singapore in February. And I do mean every day. It's not quite like Cambodia, but it the heat is still oppressive without you even having to do anything at all. It just melts you while you stand there. The sun doesn't matter. It's just hot in a way that I've never experienced before. 

An early rise. A quick breakfast at what became our usual breakfast spot in the underground mall attached to the Andaz Singapore. Found a car on the Grab app (Singapore's version of Lyft) that we used to get pretty much everywhere in Singapore that had decent cell service. And we were off. Changi Ferry Terminal to catch a bumboat (apparently it comes from the Dutch word for boat added to the word in English for boat, which is "boat" so it means boat boat) to take us over to Pulau Ubin.

The process to get on one of these bumboats isn't at first exactly clear. There's a ferry terminal that (despite the complete lack of signage that tells you where to actually find the boats) looks super official. It appears organized and there's what appears to be a customs clearing facility on site. There's also a line that we dutifully stood in and waited for an attendant or government official or boat captain or whomever to summon us towards the next bumboat departing for the island.

It doesn't work like that. Basically each boat captain comes to the line and takes a boatload of people. But not always from the front. The first boat that got to the dock after we eventually found the line took a group of 10 or 12 people from about six deep in the line. There weren't enough people there other than the large group to fill his boat so he just took the big group, regardless of their place in line. I guess they have to fill their boat to maximize their earnings which I can understand. 

Ultimately, the wait wasn't that bad. We got on the next boat, handed over our $4 SG per person and we were on our way.

Local Pulau Ubin architecture.

Our agenda for the day was to start with the island's Sensory Trail, a brief walk through some jungle adjacent to the jetty, followed by a tour through the town to get an idea of how the locals live. We figured if things were going OK (meaning we were seeing things that interested us) that we'd keep going and maybe take a ride out to the Chek Jawa Wetlands on the east side of the island. That seemed to be a popular spot to spend some time.

One of the main attractions of the Sensory Trail was a series of planted exhibits featuring local fruits and vegetables grown in that part of the world and used in traditional food dishes. Jackfruit. Durian. Bananas. That sort of thing. It was sort of a miniature version of the spice farm we visited in Zanzibar in the early part of 2023 but with way, way fewer species and actual plants. This sort of stuff is always a little fascinating because we can't possibly see these kinds of crops at home. I think the highlight was a pandan plant, sometimes called the Asian vanilla because of its resemblance to that bean as a flavoring agent. Ordinarily, this might not have been a serious source of intrigue but we had fallen in love with pandan in Cambodia earlier in our trip to Southeast Asia. Our hotel served a pandan sticky rice with mango. We were only in Cambodia for three nights and we managed to order that dish at four separate meals. Good stuff!!!

Pandan. Some good stuff in these leaves.

We expected that beyond the sensory part of the Sensory Trail that we'd get a great look at a lot of exotic looking birds. Emphasis on great! And here our sights may have been set unreasonably high because there just weren't that many around. Yes, we got a good look at some blue-tailed bee-eaters (below) and what I believe was a purple heron (also below) and there were one or two kingfishers spotted but by and large, the jungle part of the trail was empty of birds. We only found these species near the couple of spots of water on the Trail.

Sure, we did manage to see a very, very large water monitor on the path in front of us walking to the water and that was about enough to make us believe that going elsewhere on the island might be valuable. So after strolling through the town and finding mostly houses, restaurants (not hungry when we were in the village) and one temple, we decided we'd find a way out to Chek Jawa. Now I don't know about everyone else looking at these bicycles for the 5 or 7 kilometer ride out to the Wetlands, but we had no interest in pedaling our way there in high 80s temperatures with low 90s humidity. Taxi for us. $15 SG each way. Let's roll.

If the Sensory Trail left us satisfied with the flora but a little let down on the fauna side of things, Chek Jawa was the Sensory Trail amplified by a factor of four or five. Tons and tons of plants and trees everywhere over a couple of different ecosystems but just nothing in terms of wildlife at all. True, we did see a sea eagle flying overhead but that was about it. It was super disappointing because the promise of this trail is huge. There's actually an extended section of boardwalk that goes out into the strait between Singapore and Malaysia which would seem to offer a great look at something out there that's alive. We got nothing.

Chek Jawa boardwalk; bee-eaters; purple heron; and a very large water monitor (top to bottom).

Were we disappointed in our time on Palau Ubin? Yeah...maybe a little. But you don't think I'd be writing about this place if all we got was a look at a few birds, a tasty plant that we ate in Cambodia and a couple of buildings, do you? We had a quest on Palau Ubin. And we found what we were looking for. Only just. But we did.

Not all birds are created equal. I don't mean that on a survivability scale or anything like that. I mean, clearly, some birds (the dodo comes to mind, here) weren't created to last long once people started colonizing the world and brought with them predators that could easily kill local winged creatures. No...by equal, I mean in my eyes (it's all about me, after all). There's a pecking order, here. Flamingoes are better than robins. Herons are better than cuckoos. Birds of prey are better than sparrows and finches. Towards the top of my list right now are toucans. I'm still itching based on our mostly misses in Costa Rica looking for those things. But slightly below toucans, there are species like kingfishers and bee-eaters and hornbills. We went to Pulau Ubin because they have hornbills.

There is one species of hornbill on Pulau Ubin: the oriental pied hornbill. They are medium-ish sized hornbills colored black-blue and really pale yellow with an added piece (not sure how else to describe it) on top of the horn-shaped bill that all hornbills sport and which give these birds their name.

And so we were done with the Sensory Trail and headed back to the town when we stopped to look at some sort of dwelling or other building made by the island's occupants. And in the time it took us to stop and check out the construction of that building as so often happens in birdwatching, the object of our search showed up in our (and by our, I mean my wife's) peripheral vision. Hornbill!!!

There was only one. And lest you think this is headed to a whole flock or something like that, it ain't. One hornbill is all we got here. We tracked him (I'm assuming it was a male) for maybe 20 minutes or so as he flew and hopped between trees and tree branches. The photos are not amazing. They are in no way as good as the bee-eater or heron pictures. They aren't probably even as good as the sea eagle picture which I decided wasn't good enough to put on this blog post.

But it's what we came for. And there's something about finding the object of your search that makes everything else that wasn't what you hoped for in a day out on vacation melt away into irrelevance. Or maybe less relevance, because I do believe a lot of what we saw and found and encountered in our half day over to and on Palau Ubin was extremely worthwhile. 

This was our first live sighting of this species of hornbill ever and it was special. I'd trade the two pictures above for the pose in the upper picture at the range of the second picture but sometimes we don't get our pick on those kinds of details in nature. We are at its mercy most always. It's both frustrating and rewarding at the same time. You can spend the better part of a day looking for wildlife finding not much at all only for the whole day to be salvaged by a single encounter. This one hornbill did that for us here.

It took a lot of looking and a lot of luck for us to find this hornbill. It would not be our last on this trip. We'd see one later in the week at the Singapore Botanic Gardens (the one with the spectacular orchids) and one after we left Singapore towards the west coast of Malaysia. Both of those hornbills were in flight, which is an incredible thing to see because they look way more put together on the wing than in a tree. This was the only one we got a sustained look (of all of five minutes total maybe) at to take in. Pulau Ubin. That's why we went there. I love it when a plan comes together. 

Just.

Singapore Dragons

Rat. Ox. Tiger. Rabbit. Dragon. Snake. Horse. Goat. Monkey. Rooster. Dog. Pig. 12 different animals. 12 different zodiac signs. Each one occurring every 12 years. There's a pretty big party celebrating the new year of one of these animals each year in a lot of places in Southeast Asia and it usually occurs sometime in January or February. The exact date moves around from year to year because the dawning of the new year is based on the position of both the sun and the moon in the daytime and nighttime skies. Some people call it Chinese New Year or the Spring Festival. I'm going to go with Lunar New Year.

I think if you had asked me if I could celebrate just one Lunar New Year in my life under the sign of one of these zodiac animals, I think for sure I would say it would have to be the dragon. I mean you can see some of these creatures in your back yard or on a farm or in a zoo. But a dragon? Oh no. The dragon is different. Way different. Not just because it's the stuff of legend. It's bigger. It's more exotic. It's more badass. It's just better in pretty much every way. And I DO realize they don't actually have real live dragons at these things.

Now as it turns out, 2024 is the Year of the Dragon. Where were we planning to be early this year? Well...just a bit south of China and bit north of the equator. Time to celebrate the dawn of the Lunar New Year. Dragon style!

I'm not saying that celebrating the Year of the Dragon this February influenced our decision to spend two plus weeks in Southeast Asia. For me, the point of this trip was to finally visit Angkor Wat in Cambodia. But Lunar New Year didn't hurt. I could easily make a reasonable argument that a 15 day long celebration centered around this zodiac animal was at least a significant tipping point in finalizing Singapore as our home base of sorts for the first week plus of our trip halfway around this planet of ours. And it definitely fixed the date of our trip. I mean why not go celebrate Lunar New Year when it was around the time we wanted to go anyway. Look...it's hard to resist dragons. And when else are we going to get the chance to party and celebrate this animal? 

I know. I get it. 2036. But that's just too far away.

Now, if we had been a little smarter we would have known that dragons (or at least A dragon) are featured in Lunar New Year rituals every year. There is a traditional Chinese performance enacted around Lunar New Year celebrations called the dragon dance. In this ritual, a team of dancers moving to a pounding and clashing of drums and cymbals hold aloft a paper or silk (or both or similar material) dragon and make the beast move to the beat of the percussion while moving through or around or in front of a crowd of spectators. A team is required because the dragon is typically quite long and support of the dragon's body from its head to its tail is required to make the dance believable. 

Well...I mean as believable as dragons are in the first place. 

We had no idea there was such a thing as a dragon dance and that we could have seen one during any Lunar New Year celebration. I'm pretty sure it would not have made any difference. I'd rather see a dragon dance on a year celebrating the dragon than see one dragon and a bunch or rabbits everywhere. Or snakes. Or oxen. Or roosters. Or...well...you get the point.

There is one more actor in a tradition dragon dance. Out in front of the dragon's head, there is a lead dancer carrying a ball on a stick. It is this object that the dragon is chasing. And it's not a ball, it's a pearl. A pearl of wisdom. The dragon is a symbol of power, strength and good luck in Chinese lore and the dance is a manifestation of the good wishes for a fortunate new year. It's cool that it's seeking wisdom. 

Travel...I'm telling you....the things we learn. Who knew? This is why we do it. At least in part.

Four of Gardens By The Bay's set of dragons. 2024 is the Year of the Wood Dragon.

So given that 2024 was the Year of the Dragon, and ignoring the fact that we didn't know that the dragon is a part of every Lunar New Year, we honestly expected to see a lot of dragons in Singapore. I don't mean one or two or a dozen or twenty. I mean A TON. We didn't know exactly where we would see them or what kind of form they would take but we (and I'm not setting expectations too high here) expected to see these things everywhere. All over the place. Wherever we looked, we wanted dragons. Is that too much to ask? 

Apparently it was not. We couldn't even make it to immigration in Singapore before we met our first dragon. And I don't mean like a poster or a mini-figurine or an electronic sign or something like that. I mean like a three-dimensional, six foot or so high full-color sculpture of a dragon built into a plant arrangement with his mouth wide open and a pearl of wisdom floating just to the right of his head. 

Not even at immigration before we found our first one!!! I view immigration as one of the most boring and sanitized parts of any journey overseas. There is rarely anything but information and signage with many, many rules at immigration in most of the airports we transit through around the world. Singapore had a dragon. A DRAGON!!!

Airport dragon number one. Welcome to Singapore.

That dragon was definitely an omen. It seemed like every place we visited we found more dragons and there was surprise after surprise after surprise here. There were dragons at the airport. There were dragons in the subway system. There were dragons inside temples. There were dragons outside of temples. There were dragons in the streets. There were dragons in the malls. On the ground. Suspended in the sky. Lighted. Unlighted. Neon. Plastic. Paper. Wood. Made from flowers. Small. Person-sized. Oversized. Giant. Lots of dragons. Everywhere. Even the Hennessy counter at the airport had an enormous dragon wrapping around its entire display at least probably 20 feet in length. What do they do with this thing when Lunar New Year is over?

There were some truly impressive dragons rolled out in the city of Singapore for Lunar New Year. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the truly giant teal-green dragons hanging in the atriums of the mall attached to the Marina Bay Sands hotel and the spectacular collection contained within the Gardens By The Bay. I'm not sure how many we came across in the Gardens but the Flower Dome alone had at least seven dragons out on display for tourists and locals alike. I've posted a few pictures of the dragons from the Flower Dome above. I love the top and bottom ones, intricately carved out of wood. 

Why wood? Well, each year in the Chinese zodiac is assigned not only an animal, but also an element, meaning earth, fire, water or wood. I was born under the sign of the earth monkey in 1968. 2024 is the Year of the Wood Dragon. The wooden sculptures at the Gardens By The Bay were truly spectacular. 

Airport dragon number two (top) and the Marina Bay Sands mall (bottom).

But none of that was the best. The drones were the best.

A couple of days before we headed out to Dulles Airport to start our voyage, I noticed an announcement on the Marina Bay Sands Casino website: to usher in the new year, MBS would be putting on a nighttime display using 1,500 coordinated, lighted drones flying in formation to create a dragon flying over Singapore Bay. THIS we had to see.

We figured this might be kind of popular. So we got there early, but not too early that we'd be killing a few hours. We arrived at the Bay across from Marina Bay Sands about 75 to 80 minutes before the 8 p.m. start time. There is a set of steps on the waterfront leading down from the main pedestrian plaza in that area down to the water's edge. The steps were full. Like absolutely no spots to sit remaining. But the paved area just behind the steps was clear in spots. We grabbed some ground on the top step and held it while the sun set. It was slow but we didn't waiver.

I don't know how many people were behind us by the start time but I think we got there at the perfect time. When we glanced behind us before the show and when we turned around to exit when the show was over, every square inch of paved space behind us seemed to be covered with spectators. Our view was perfect. Our timing was immaculate here.

Right at about 8 p.m., we noticed many, many lighted objects on the paved area in front of the Marina Bay Sands. They started to rise slowly. Showtime!

A giant pearl of wisdom formed by drones above Marina Bay Sands. Everyone is on their phones.

I don't know who conceived of this display or how they pulled it off. I realize that the whole thing is run by computers but how did they even orchestrate this event? They must have practiced, right? But when? They can't do it in the day and they couldn't have done it when a lot of people were awake at night because it would give the whole thing away. 4 a.m. maybe? I suppose we will never know.

I also have to point out ultimately, and ignoring the whole 1,500 drones thing which is just so impressive, this is just a graphic in the sky formed by 1,500 dots of light. There's nothing lifelike or CGI about what happened that night. It's like a super basic computer graphic from the 1980s or something like that. Not very sophisticated or anything. At least not graphically. It's not like we could really believe there was a dragon flying around in front of us.

At the same time, it was absolutely fantastical and amazing. I can quite confidently say that I've never really seen anything like what I saw that night. It started with a giant white pearl of wisdom hovering above the hotel property (although not really; it just seemed that way from our vantage point), morphed into a torii (or temple gate) and then transformed into a giant dragon in the Singapore night sky. And despite the limitations of stitching together an image of a dragon with 1,500 points of light, it was completely believable. Just imagine...

Marina Bay Sands put this display on twice while we were in Singapore. We caught the first one. As lifelike or complex as some of the dragons that we saw on posters or in garden displays or at stores in malls or in the streets of Singapore were, there was nothing that topped 1,500 drones flying around over open water creating the illusion that there was some giant creature flying around one of the city's premier tourist attractions. Nothing. 

This was the best dragon we saw in our seven nights in the Lion City and it wasn't even remotely close. I am sure that in future years, technology will advance to the point where someone, somewhere will be able to create a perfectly lifelike and totally fake dragon during daylight or nighttime that will appear to be flying over any city in the world. But for 2024, all of that stuff that will happen in the future didn't matter. This was the best of the 20 or 30 or 40 or whatever the number was of dragons that we saw to celebrate Lunar New year this year. Our Lunar New Year experience in Singapore was absolutely the best thing we did on this trip. The drones put the whole thing over the top and created a memory that will last a lifetime.

We found Singapore (and most everywhere in Southeast Asia, really) to be extremely hot and very humid. A fierce or semi-fierce rainstorm sometime in the afternoon or early evening seemed to be a daily occurrence in that city when we were there in early February. So, of course, the daily rainstorm happened at like 7:59 and 30 or so seconds p.m. on the night of the drone show. It was actually mercifully short and didn't involve lightning, so it didn't cancel the show. We were wet but not soaked and it didn't really affect the wonder that we experienced that night. 

But it did affect one or two pics we took. There's some fuzziness and haziness. I don't think it affected our memories what happened that night. In fact, it might have cooled us off a bit and made us more comfortable. But certainly the graphic quality of our photographic memories were diluted just a bit. I hope the overall effect comes through loud and clear. 

Gong Xi Fa Cai

There are a dozen animals in the Chinese zodiac, each one assigned to a calendar year on a 12 year cycle. Those born under the sign of the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit or whatever other animal in the zodiac are said to embody the characteristics and attributes of the animal which is assigned to the year of their birth. I'm a monkey. Monkeys are supposed to be well-rounded, witty, intelligent and deep thinkers. They are also supposed to have stable careers and do not trust others easily. Do with all that what you will but I like being a monkey.

Each spring, the arrival of the new year in the Chinese zodiac is celebrated all over southeast Asia in what is sometimes known as the Spring Festival. The exact date of the new year is based on both the position of the Sun in the Earth's sky and the moon phase, so it is not tied to a specific date the way our western new year celebration works. Some call the celebration Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year. Since the coming of the new year is celebrated beyond the borders of China, I'll be using the term Lunar New Year for the rest of this post, even though technically that's not even true because the celebration is based on a lunisolar calendar, not a lunar calendar. 

When we determined that 2024 was finally the year that we would make it Angkor Wat in Cambodia, we knew we would be visiting in the middle of winter to avoid the monsoon season (May through September) and the hottest and most humid months of the year (March through June) and that right before Christmas was probably not a great time to spend two plus weeks halfway around the world. We settled on February, which happened to be the time of the Lunar New Year celebration in 2024. This seemed like something we had to do.

Just not in Cambodia. 

We picked Singapore. 

Year of the Dragon, baby!!!!

2024 is the Year of the Dragon, which has to be about the coolest animal in the Chinese zodiac. Even as biased as I am towards monkeys, I have to go with Dragon as the best, Tiger as the second best and Monkey in the three spot. But this isn't about Monkeys. 2024 is all about the Dragon.

Unlike our new year celebrations here in the western world, the Lunar New Year celebrations are not confined to a single night. It's actually a 15 day long celebration. I'm not saying that people in the United States don't know how to celebrate the ringing in of a new year, but we spend all of maybe 8 or so hours maximum commemorating this event and that's usually if you are hosting a party or something. If you are a guest, you are probably in for a few hours less than that.

Lunar New Year celebrations are a time to reunite with families; remove clutter and baggage from your life and your home; and pray for good fortune and protection against evil. It is an event consisting of many intricate rituals and traditions which are respected and practiced correctly to maximize good luck for the coming 12 months or so. It's some serious business.

The primary impetus for this trip to Southeast Asia was without any doubt to finally visit Angkor Wat. Lunar New Year was a secondary attraction and it was supposed to be just that: secondary. But honestly, celebrating Lunar New Year was the best thing we did on this trip. It was such a privilege to be a part of something so ancient and revered that is so steeped in tradition and that builds and reinforces important connections between people and their cultures. Every moment we spent doing something related to the celebration of the new year was an important event. It was such a rich experience. 

I know we got a uniquely Singaporean Lunar New Year. There are traditions in that tiny island nation which do not appear in the celebrations in China or Vietnam or Malaysia or anywhere else in the world. That just added to the special-ness of this experience, even if we didn't stay for the whole thing or take in everything we possibly could have taken in. I think we clearly got enough to make this probably THE signature experience of our 2024 travel year. And we got it in the second month!! Not that I'm saying the rest of the year won't be great, but it's difficult to see anything topping this.

Here's what our slice of Lunar New Year looked like in 2024. Singapore-style.

River Hongbao

Singapore hosts two Lunar New Year celebrations that are unique to their country each year: River Hongbao and the Chingay Parade. Unfortunately for us, the Chingay Parade (which is sort of a deluxe talent show and parade in one and is clearly the biggest and most over-the-top celebration of Lunar New Year) is at the end of the 15 day celebration and we would already be back in the United States having finished the rest of our vacation by the time that kicked off. We figured when we were planning this trip that if we scheduled our trip around the actual New Year's Day, we'd be all set with all the good stuff. Turns out we were wrong. I'm not sure it mattered. We couldn't have realistically covered the entirety of Singapore's Lunar New Year celebration since we only get so much time off work. 

Stupid work...

So that left us with River Hongbao, a Singapore tradition since 1987 to celebrate Lunar New Year along the Singapore River. These days, it's held at the fabulous Gardens By The Bay and how cool it is seems very, very dependent upon when you go.

Here's how it works. 

Basically, a portion of the Gardens By The Bay park is cordoned off so that a series of three-dimensional static and animatronic displays can be installed as a sort of a walk through display type event. All 12 of the zodiac signs are represented beside signage detailing each animal's fortune for the year in addition to the lucky numbers and lucky colors for each animal (the dragon holding the wand a couple of pictures up is one of the 12). There are some other displays that represent Singapore's commercial history along with an amusement park which looks like a county fair type thing and some food stands that look like they belong in the same sort of venue, although the food is absolutely nothing like a U.S. county fair. 

At the center of the whole thing, there is a giant, 18-meter long dragon suspended between the Gardens' man-made super trees, along with a giant sculpture of the God of Fortune. They are both suspended or standing next to a performance stage, although I believe the performance stage may have been removed after the opening ceremony. My memory is not super-clear on that one.

The displays are fine. The fortunes next to each of the 12 zodiac signs, which are essentially horoscopes for the year, are fun and if you are into that kind of stuff. And, by the way, I know it makes no sense with my personality but I am totally into that sort of stuff. I love zodiac symbols and horoscopes and all the rest that comes with it. I suppose it helps that I see a lot of monkey and a lot of cancer in me, although I suppose the characteristics descriptions for both western and eastern zodiacs are sufficiently vague that everyone is supposed to recognize themselves to some extent.

Here's the thing that made River Hongbao worthwhile for us: at certain times on certain days, there are special celebrations that are impressive, and they are centered around that dragon (I assume it's a different animal in non-dragon years). We made it to River Hongbao for the opening ceremony and if you are in Singapore at this time of year, I highly recommend going. It's going to take you a bit of time to get there; there are going to be a ton of people there; and it's going to take you longer to get home than it took you to get there, but the fireworks display (which takes all of a couple of minutes) is definitely worth seeing in person. There's some kind of performance schedule at the stage. I'd skip those and just keep your eyes on where the fireworks are going to happen.

This really kicked off our Lunar New Year celebration with a bang (pun intended). It was held on New Year's Eve eve and got us warmed up for staying up until midnight the next day.

Lion Dances / Dragon Dances

Lunar New Year has its roots in Chinese legend. According to lore, there was a beast in one particular Chinese village which every year on the start of the lunar year destroyed all the crops and animals belonging to the villagers. The villagers called this beast Nian, which means "year" in Chinese.

Eventually, the villagers discovered Nian was afraid of loud noises, bright lights and the color red. I mean...why these things...but just accept it... So every Lunar New Year's eve, the villagers would perform a dance with loud drums and cymbals using a replica of Nian's likeness, with one person manipulating the head of the beast and the other taking the hind quarters, to scare the actual monster away.

The dance has evolved today into the lion dance, which features two people (or more if there are more than one lion) in costumes basically resembling the lions in the picture above. I know, they don't look quite like the lions we find in Africa today but go with me here and trust me: for the purposes of Lunar New Year celebrations in Singapore and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, these are lions.  Sometimes, the lion dance is accompanied by a dragon dance but not always. I'm not sure but I believe the dragon dance is a supplement to and not separate from the lion dance. Or maybe I believe that because that's what we experienced.

Lion dancers, their costumes partly shed, exiting the party zone at Lunar New Year celebration.

We tried very hard to get to a spot where a lion dance was being performed in our time in Singapore. There are schedules on websites of various sorts with times and dates where these dances are performed. Most seemed to be in shopping malls remote from the city center where we were staying and with everything else on our schedule, we just passed on all that and hoped we'd find one. Hoping is not generally a good plan.

We struggled with this. We'd seen a lion dance up close and personal in Hawaii in 2016 when we were unwittingly there around Lunar New year. We didn't see any lion dance up close and personal in 2024. We just couldn't find one. To make our situation worse, we ended up seeing multiple flatbed trucks with lion dance troupes packed into the back with all their gear when we were walking, bussing or grabbing (Singapore's version of Uber or Lyft) around the city. 

We did manage to be in attendance at two lion dances in Singapore but we didn't get great looks at either one. The first was at the opening ceremony of the River Hongbao discussed above during the fireworks celebration. We honestly were so far from the lion dancers and were so focused on the fireworks that we didn't even notice it was going on until we saw the dancers dismantling their costumes. 

The second one was at the midnight celebration of Lunar New Year in Chinatown. We knew full well this one was going on but the space was so tight and our spot was so off to the side that we didn't get a great look at the dance itself. We saw all the gear being loaded in and out and the dancers (both lion and dragon) waiting to dance really clearly but the actual dance...not so much. 

I'm still counting this last one as checking our lion dance box. Hey, you can't always get the perfect view of everything. We tried to be comprehensive with Lunar New Year. We missed perfection on one or two things. 

Yu Sheng

One of the most important traditions of Lunar New Year is families coming together or reuniting and celebrating. It is typical for households to go out to eat as an extended family and indulge in a pricey, multi-course traditional meal called a reunion dinner.

Now, this was not exactly us on this trip. We weren't reunion-ing together with any other family members in person and we are together pretty much all the time and that's just the way we like it. But look, we are not sitting out any tradition that involves food really so we were totally in.

This tradition is common in many Southeast Asian countries right before Lunar New Year and it doesn't have to necessarily be the actual eve of the new year for you to do this. Most restaurants we checked out seemed to be offering seatings of reunion dinners both before and after the actual New Year's Eve in addition to being on the actual day of the midnight celebration. Menus for this meal vary, but there appeared to a soup of some sort, some noodles, some abalone (apparently canned abalone is a Lunar New Year thing...) and some seafood. But every reunion dinner meal in Singapore starts with the same thing, and it's uniquely Singaporean; you will not find this dish in any other country. It's called Yu Sheng.

Chinatown (Singapore) on Lunar New Year eve.

Yu sheng is basically a big sort of salad topped with raw salmon (although other toppings are available). It comes as a series of small piles of ingredients like glass noodles, grated carrot, grated daikon (sometimes colored) and seasoned nuts. What all we got on our plate I couldn't say because I didn't write it all down and I can't pick it all out from my pictures (something about the food coloring). 

Then the salmon is placed on top, followed by (in sequence) lime, Chinese five spice, cinnamon, sesame oil, plum sauce and crushed wontons. This adding of ingredients is all done at one time by the whole dining room. Before each of those last ingredients is added, there is a speech from the host about good wishes for the year and the whole room yells "lo hei!" which means good fortune.

Then you each get a pair of giant chopsticks and start tossing the salad in the air while yelling "lo hei!" over and over again until the salad is fully mixed or you are lo hei-ed out. After that, it's dinner time. The Yu Sheng is actually really good. I was concerned that the cinnamon was going to overwhelm the whole dish but it didn't. 

I believe we were the only non-Chinese family in the place where we ate our reunion dinner so I appreciate the restaurant staff walking us through the whole meal and its tradition but especially the Yu Sheng. They made us feel like we were part of the celebration, rather than outsiders crashing the party. Participating in as much of Lunar New Year in Singapore as we could was very important to us and we were grateful for the staff going overboard to clue us in on what was going on.

I should note that we found it quite difficult to find a restaurant that would accept a reservation for just two people for our reunion dinner. Most menus are set up to accommodate groups of at least four and really ranging up to 12 or more at a table. I guess the amount of money we were going to spend for a prix fixe meal for just the two of us doesn't usually make sense for a restaurant at this time of the year. The first place we made a reservation actually emailed and told us that their reservation system mistakenly accepted a reservation for two and that they had cancelled our table and then their system auto-sent an email asking why we cancelled and suggested we try their Greek restaurant instead.

Ultimately, we asked our hotel for advice hoping they would squeeze us into their theoretically sold out restaurant on New Year's Eve which is exactly what happened (having status helps...). Ironically, we were sat at a table that could hold at least five. I appreciate the Andaz Singapore doing this for us. It was a nice gesture and definitely solved a problem for us.

Fireworks

We did quite a bit of research about where to watch the fireworks on the eve of Lunar New Year. Our final decision came down to two spots: (1) somewhere in front of Marina Bay Sands, the massive hotel on the water at the end of the Singapore River; or (2) Chinatown. We figured Marina Bay Sands would put on a hell of a show akin to a western New Year's Eve fireworks celebration and that the scene in Chinatown would be more packed and way less deluxe. We picked Chinatown anyway.

I have no idea what the celebration at Marina Bay Sands was like. We didn't go and we didn't look it up after the fact. We stuck with our gut on this one and went all in on Chinatown.

Now, I didn't expect this night to be like Times Square in New York City on New Year's Eve in the United States or anything. I didn't expect Ryan Seacrest or Anderson Cooper or Andy Cohen (Andy is the BEST on NYE) or Maroon 5 or Rod Stewart or Green Day or any sorts of internationally (or is it just western world?) famous celebrities in the mix. 

I was right. There WAS a stage show and there was nobody famous that I recognized. Me not recognizing someone doesn't make them not famous, by the way. It was all in Chinese (Singapore usually has everything spelled out or broadcast in four languages; not on LNY Eve) and seemed to feature heavy emphasis on the organizing committee of the local Singapore government, although I might have been misunderstanding this (it was in Chinese after all). 

The stage show featured singers, a lot of talking by the two or four of five emcees running the whole event and there was a lion and dragon dance that winded its way through the crowd pretty close to (or maybe a bit after) midnight.

The Lunar New Year eve stage show (on the right). The dragon dancers are in waiting.

And yes, there were fireworks. But maybe those need some clarification for what I assume is mostly a western audience among the dozen or so people who might actually read this thing.

When people in the United States think about fireworks, we think about explosions in the sky. We think about multiple colors and patterns and effects. We think about a grand finale which seems to go on forever and builds and builds and builds to a massive climax and leaves us fully satisfied. We think about 20 minutes or more minimum. Whether it's New Year's Eve somewhere or July 4 throughout the nation or a display to close a concert at the Hollywood Bowl or a sporting event, these shows are extravagant and magnificent and awe-inspiring.

That is NOT what happens at Lunar New Year's Eve in Chinatown in Singapore. Maybe fireworks is even the wrong work. Maybe it's firecrackers. Honestly, the celebration that night in Chinatown looked like someone lit something on fire in an empty parking lot. It was loud, it was smoky and it was bright white. It lasted all of a couple of minutes, although legitimately, I didn't time it. If that's what it is, I'm good with that. I wanted authenticity here. That's why we ultimately picked Chinatown over Marina Bay Sands. We were in Singapore. I wanted a Singapore celebration, not a New York Times Square one.

I don't know how long it takes to get out of Time Square on New Year's Eve (or I guess the early hours of New Year's Day) but we got home (meaning to the hotel) at 41 minutes after midnight. Singapore public transport is efficient.

Red Envelopes

Like any good holiday (and I'm being causal and callous with those words a bit, I know), Lunar New Year involves the giving of gifts. Hey...who doesn't like gifts or presents on holidays?

On Lunar New Year, there is a tradition of giving money in red (remember the color that scared away Nian?) envelopes. Just to be clear, people like me, who are gainfully employed and theoretically taking care of families, do not receive red envelopes with money inside. The giving of red envelopes is specifically focused on children and maybe parents and grandparents and people who serve you all year (I guess like dry cleaners and mail carriers and others that we sometimes give end of year tips to in the United States). If you want to do it right, give denominations of money ending in 8 (which is lucky) and avoid 4 (which sounds like the word "death" in Chinese).

We didn't expect to have anything to do with this tradition in Singapore (although admittedly I did buy some off Amazon and give my wife an iTunes gift certificate in a red envelope festooned with an impressive-looking dragon). But it seems restaurants like to hand these things out so you are prepared to give, I guess. We were handed a stack of red envelopes (although admittedly one was orange; not sure what's up with that) after each of three of the meals we ate in Singapore. I love these things. They are like little works of art and they are so carefully conceived and put together. They are displayed in the picture above. Personally, the deep red Tiger envelopes are my favorite but that may be the beer connection speaking there.

Our mini collection of red envelopes (also known as hongbao by the way) was a nice addition to our experience. I usually tip our cleaners in a plain white envelope when they come to clean our townhouse once a month. For the last two months, they have received the money in one of these envelopes. They might continue to do this for the near future.

All of these things together added up to the best thing about our vacation in Asia (and particularly Singapore). Red envelopes. Fireworks. Lion Dances. River Hongbao. Reunion dinners. All of it was important. All of it reinforced the other experiences into something that was so rewarding. We felt like we were part of something that had been going on for centuries, probably because that's exactly what was going on. And in case you think I was poo-pooing the whole fireworks thing, I wouldn't have it any other way. That celebration the way it was done was part of how the whole thing goes down and I didn't want or need anything different.

The title of this post is an Anglicization of the Chinese greeting used on Lunar New Year. Gong Xi Fa Chi (pronounced gong she faa chai, although I know I need some sort of accent on the faa to make it a short sound) literally means "I hope you get rich". The actual nuanced translation may be "I hope you enlarge your wealth" or something like that but essentially it's a wish for prosperity and particularly monetary prosperity during the coming year. 

I'm cool with all that. Hey, I hope 2024 brings me a ton of money personally. I mean who doesn't wish for more money? I know there's more to life than that and I'm totally thankful for the things in life that make me realize that every day (particularly the one person I go everywhere with). This whole experience was supposed to be the second best thing we would do on the other side of the world. It wasn't. It was number one. I'm so glad we did this. Maybe do it again next year of the monkey?