Report 8: The Year of the Pig is Here!!

That’s right folks, it is CNY! Also known as Chinese New Year or the Lunar New Year. Think New Years and Christmas all wrapped up into one holiday. It is a time for people to be with there families and observe traditions in order to bring in the new year with good luck. So naturally we had to celebrate by eating a lot and going to Chinatown for the festivities.

First on the list was eating everything in sight. They make all kinds of special treats for the holiday, kinda like Christmas cookies only lots more cookies and way cheeper. So luckily our hall was taking a bus to Chinatown and then to Geylang. Chinatown obviously for the shopping of CNY goodies and then Geylang for the food. Benedict, my neighbor and the man that can get you anything went with us, along with most of the hall. Chinatown was great and I got lots of stuff for my room and to bring back for the scrap book. But the main event went to Geylang.

Ben took us to some place on this one street and said a few things to this lady that worked at the place we were at. We waited for a bit and then the lady that Ben said the things to came out of the back of the place we were at with food that looked like this one thing I ate before. Then Ben went to work, he told us all about what we were eating and why. It turns out that the stuff that the lady brought us was what that place was famous for – beef and noodles. It was a huge bowl, like the size of my entire stomache! And the four of us that were eating dug in. Then came the calamari, some leafy vegetables, prawn rapped in this stuff that looked like bread, Small Ming ordered us an oyster omlete, and then we finished it off with some Frog Porrage. Oh, and there was rice in there too, but I think that is a given. Everything was delicious, even after Chinatown where I had some fish balls, a romly burger, this sweet tasting taco-like thing I had three of and some coconut juice fresh from the nut. The frog legs even tasted good, kinda like chicken only more tender. Then after that we had some dessert at the place next to the original place that I had been talking about. It is famous for its fried dough. Think funnel cake in a long piece that has the length and width of medium size pepperoni stick. You eat two at a time and dip it into this bean curd stuff that is sweet but has no real taste, or the fake milkish stuff that I was drinking. The milkish stuff finished me off and I retreated back to campus where after a quick snack of peanut sheet cookies I went to bed.

Two days later it was Saturday. With the new year only a few hours away, the traveling crew and I headed into the place to be for lunar new year, CHINATOWN. This time, it was packed!! I am not talking like it was hard for me to get around people, I am talking you don’t go around people. If the dude in front of you stops, you and the hundreds of people behind you stop. There are spots where the crowd is not as thick, but when you are in the crowd, you are being touched by four people, the guy behind you, the guy behind you and slightly left, the guy behind you and slightly right, and the guy sqeezing between guy on slight left and guy directly behind. The rest of the people you are touching as you try not to fall into them. But wowy was it worth it. Leading up to midnight there were singers, dragon dancing, drumming that was unbeatable. It was a great cultural experience. Then, once midnight hit, the fire crackers went off and it was possibly the loudest sound I have ever heard. The large dragon that was dancing with other little dragons following it came about twenty feet from me, so I got to see it pretty close. The dragon dances are really cool. They make it seem like the dragon is real, the motions they used are perfect and their legs look like the dragons. If you ever get a chance to see it, you need to. Then after that since you are supposed to stay up as late as you can (the later you stay up, the more luck you will get throughout the year) Jen, Alica, and I went to the Merlion to eat our goodies and chit chat until the sun came up. Then we took the MRT back to campus and prompty fell asleep.

For the next few nights after that, I stayed up real late and had troble getting to sleep the night before classes. Luckily, spring break is coming up soon and I wont be getting a lot of sleep there so I will be used to it. I will post my spring break schedule some time before I leave in two days.