Anyway. I've actually been at school this week (I know, crazy right?) so for the most part this week has consisted of me going to class, doing homework, and listening to the soundtrack from The Last Airbender, cause hey, I'm in Asia right? (And if you say that isn't a great show, then I'm sorry, but you have lost your inner child who enjoys cool things, hope, and cartoons. Or you're just lying. Either way I blame shuffle for reminding me I had that.) But I digress again. What I mean to say is that unless you guys actually want me to post about homework and the average school week, let me know. But for now I'll error on the side of you not wanting to hear about my marketing essays.
But, as the weekend approaches, so does Chinese New Year. I have mentioned it briefly in previous posts, but I'll go into detail now because that is what will be consuming a majority of my time this weekend. Chinese New Year (The Lunar New Year) is a huge celebration here and the city has been preparing for quite a while. Decorations have been going up since I got here and have continued to grow and be added around the city throughout my entire time here, coloring many heavily trafficked areas of Singapore in red and gold. I'm not going to talk too much about the traditions or practices (because you have Google) so I'm mostly going to focus on my experience with the celebrations. For starters, today we headed down to Chinatown again to wander the shops, have some food, and get a look at some of the decorations before it became crowded for the weekend.
(Just some of the street decorations in Chinatown)
The decorations were great! This year being year of the snake, there was a long yellow snake made of lanterns that was hung above one of the main roads, winding above the busy street for blocks and blocks. We spent most of our time perusing the many street vendors that were set up along the main roads in Chinatown, which sold an assortment of clothes, accessories, souvenirs, and foods. The jelly vendors were particularly interesting, yelling into microphones and hand out free samples of these tasty little packets of jello like jelly. My friend gave them $15 and they just started packing them into a bag for her, not really paying attention to how much went in. I got a really nice gift for myself, a bamboo scroll wall decoration. I'll do more souvenir shopping for others later, its still pretty early in my trip :)
(In one of the many street vendor tents)
This next coming weekend will be the large celebrations of Chinese New Year. We'll be having a potluck-type-deal, going to the festival and parade, and hopefully seeing some fireworks. Should be pretty fun, and who can complain about getting 2 days off classes! I'll have another post after all of the festivities to let you know how they went.
Also, as I was informed, 100 days from today I will be returning home. It's pretty crazy to think about how much I will be doing in these next 100 days, learning to dive, visiting 5 countries, climbing a volcano, all while living in this great city (and going to class sometimes). Pretty crazy! I'm excited to share my adventures with you, stay tuned :)
Thanks for reading!
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