Chinese New Year visiting

Chinese New Year celebrations last 15 days. Each year, it is customary that one visits friends and relatives during Chinese New Year. Upon arrival at the friends' / relatives' homes, everyone would give lunar new year greetings to each other. In the old days, the visitor would usually bring two Mandarin oranges to the home of the person whom he is visiting, to wish the person "good luck". Nowadays, a bag of two Mandarin oranges has evolved into a bag of lunar new year goodies (which may or may not include the two Mandarin oranges). It is also customary for the recipient of the goodie bag / Mandarin oranges to give something back as well. As such, one often goes to a friend's / relative's home with a goodie bag and leaves with another goodie bag!

Today, Da and I had arranged to visit the home of the Three Musketeers in the evening. The last we met them was before Chinese New Year, when they came over to our home for dinner.

As Da had to work today, we arranged to meet at one of our regular haunts for lunch, that is, People's Park Centre (the other regular haunt being one of the Hainanese coffee shops located at Purvis Street). The photograph of People's Park Centre was taken opposite the shopping mall. I was standing outside the entrance to Hotel 81 (a budget hotel) when I took the photograph today. Fortunately, many people are still in the holiday mood and the road was not very busy. As such, I was able to take a clear photograph of the shopping mall in between traffic.

People's Park Centre is a very old shopping mall located at Eu Tong Sen Street in Chinatown. It is a mixed development. The lower levels are shops whereas the upper levels are offices and apartments. I had a classmate (猫) when I was in Junior College (that is, Grades 11 and 12) whose aunt owned a residential unit in People's Park Centre. A group of us had ever visited the aunt's unit when we were in school. I recall that her unit was very large.

Da and I decided to eat something different for lunch today. We went to the food court at People's Park Centre that we often patronise. However, we decided to order food from the vegetarian stall today. (Hi Tuayi, I think that you will like the food sold at this stall. There is minimal use of gluten and most of the dishes are cooked using vegetables or bean products, eg. tau hu, tau kee, tau pok, etc.)

The stall offers you a choice of steamed white rice, various types of fried noodles and organic brown rice. Da and I decided to order the organic brown rice, which complemented the ingredients very well.

Each order of food comes with a complimentary bowl of soup. Today, the soup comprised beans, carrots and turnip.

After a very satisfying lunch, we decided to walk around Chinatown. The streets and shops were surprisingly not very crowded. Perhaps many people are out visiting relatives and friends for Chinese New Year.

As we walked past Smith Street, we heard the sound of a lion dance performance nearby. Following the direction of the sound, we managed to watch a lion dance performance outside one of the souvenir shops located at Smith Street. It is customary for Chinese businessmen to arrange for a lion dance performance outside their shop during Chinese New Year as it is believed to bring "good business" to the shop.

One of the highlights of the lion dance performance is when the "lion" will peel some Mandarin oranges and arrange the oranges in a certain design on the floor. You will note from the photograph below that the oranges have been arranged in a certain manner to form Chinese characters. In Muar, Malaysia (the hometown of my mother), the oranges are often arranged in an abstract manner to represent 4 digits and you are supposed to decipher what the 4 digits are so that you can place a "4D" bet (lottery) at the betting house.

Smith Street is closed to traffic. There are many souvenir shops along the street. There are also many road-side stalls lining both sides of the street selling souvenirs. As Da and I reached the end of the street, we turned right at South Bridge Road and continued our way. Our intention was to walk towards Da's office at Tanjong Pagar area where our car was parked.

We came across many interesting buildings along South Bridge Road. Near an Indian temple is a very old building with the words "Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited, South Branch" carved into the wall. The building does not seem to be used as a bank now. Perhaps in the past it was a branch of the bank.

We also saw an outlet of Eu Ean Sang, a medical hall chain. Other than the shop selling Chinese medical products, this outlet also has a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) clinic.

Next to Sago Lane is a large Chinese temple that is a tourist attraction. Sago Lane used to be known as "death street". In the past, there used to be houses located along this street that provided a service similar to that of a hospice. Naturally, as it was in the early 20th century, there were not much medical services at such "death houses". As it was believed that it was not auspicious to die in one's home (as it would bring "bad luck" to the surviving family members), people who were dying would go to such "death houses" to live out their dying days. Next to such "death houses" were funeral parlours.

Opposite the Chinese temple is a hawker centre known as "Maxwell Food Centre". There is a stall at this food centre that sells delicious fish soup that is cooked with evaporated milk.

Da and I crossed the road opposite Maxwell Food Centre and arrived at Jinricksha Station.

Before the introduction of taxis, one of the popular modes of transport in Singapore in the early 20th century was that of rickshaws. The Jinricksha Station served as a depot where the rickshaw drivers would take a rest.

Ah! We had finally arrived at Tanjong Pagar Road. As the weather was very good, it was very likely that Da and I would be able to walk all the way to his office today.

Along Tanjong Pagar Road are many bridal boutiques. It is almost impossible to walk along the road without a boutique staff approaching you to recommend one of their bridal packages. Even when you tell them that you are already married, they would recommend their "wedding anniversary package". They are certainly very enterprising!

Da and I saw a building that had Chinese opera masks displayed outside the building. How interesting!

Finally! The destination was in sight. We reached Tras Street. You can see Da's office building in the background in the photograph below.

We collected our car and made our way to the home of the Three Musketeers. Their home was decked in festive cheer. Other than the usual lunar new year greetings, we were surprised when 3-year-old Nining held out her hand to us for a handshake. She never ceases to amaze us.

We had a delicious steamboat dinner. You can see quite a lot of mushrooms in the photograph below because Nining loves mushrooms.

After dinner, we sat down to watch "The Haunted Mansion" on television, starting Eddie Murphy. This reminds me of the time when I visited the "The Haunted Mansion" attraction at Disneyland years ago. At the attraction, if you were to look into the mirror, you can see funny looking creatures smiling back at you. Boo!

Therapy time! Da was given a shoulder massage by ET. Ouch! Ouch!

After Supercute gave me a shoulder massage, Nining demonstrated how to do stretches. Firstly, sit on the floor in the posture that you see in the photograph below.

Holding the same leg posture, bend forward as low as you can. In the process, you will stretch your back muscles.

No Chinese New Year gathering would be complete without.... mahjong! I joined SY, Tau Suan and Nining for a few rounds of this very exciting game.

What goes with a hot steaming cup of cafe latte? A sinful doughnut, of course.....

I sampled a pineapple tart that was home-made by an Indonesian lady. The pastry melted in my mouth. Delicious! May I have the recipe, please?

SY had bought some strawberries from the supermarket yesterday and we shared a bowl of cold and sweet strawberries. (Hi Aunt Peh, this brings back memories of your version of strawberry shortcake that you made at your friend's home when my aunt AN, my cousin PL and I visited you in the United States of America in 1992.)

Good food, great company... this is the life!