Singapore: Feb 20: Chinese New Year Festivities

I took these pictures this day. Di Yin also took pictures. The link goes to the first picture from this day (picture #531) in the album from this trip. When you come to a picture of another breakfast (picture #560), you're gone too far. I'll link to the rest of her pictures in later posts.

We returned to Singapore from Cambodia on Friday night, February 19, 2010. Because we arrived at our hotel, the Furama City Centre, late at night, we got upgraded to a suite. Admittedly, it wasn't as nice as our suite in Cambodia, but it was pretty nice nonetheless. I love checking into hotels late. :) As part of the upgrade, they said we were now allowed to attend the breakfast buffet for free. They didn't have to do that. We took advantage of their generosity and ate breakfast at the hotel: not bad.

I forget what we did between breakfast and lunch. Perhaps went to my company's offices to use the internet?

Lunch was at Maxwell Food (Hawker) Centre. After lunch, we took the bus to meet M, a friend of mine and of Di Yin's, to pick up our baggage. (He was kind enough to keep the bulk of our baggage at his place so we could travel lighter to Cambodia.) Because it took longer to get to his place than I expected, I knew I was going to be seriously late for my haircut appointment.

This haircut was a big deal to me. I didn't want to get my hair cut in Shanghai because practically zero barbers have any experience cutting hair like mine (i.e., white people's hair) and, regardless, I wouldn't be able to easily communicate to tell the barber what I wanted. By this time, my hair was longer than I was used to -- it was a month after when I normally would've gotten a haircut.

After some research in Singapore, I found a couple hair salons that specialize in cutting Caucasian hair. They weren't easy to find--Singapore's white population is small--but they existed, unlike in Shanghai. I made an appointment.

Because I was looking forward to getting my hair cut for so long, I was panicked when I knew I would be late. I tried calling but couldn't get through. I took a taxi straight from my friend's place directly to the salon in a (successful) attempt to eliminate the time I would've lost by taking public transit to the salon. Incidentally, the taxi, despite the ride being twenty minutes (which would've been at least double with public transit), was surprisingly cheap.

I made it to the salon twenty-five minutes late. They didn't complain and took me right away, though they did give me to one of the employees in training (which made me a little nervous), not the senior stylists.

The experience of getting my hair cut at this salon was a little overwhelming: they washed and rinsed my hair three times before cutting and blow-drying it, quite a change from my cheapo barber shop. That's probably why it was expensive: more than twice what I normally pay.

The money was worth it. And, even though I was cut by a less experienced staff member, the haircut was excellent. It was a good investment, and it held up better over the next couple months than other haircuts I've had.

After the haircut, I met Di Yin at the hotel and we emerged to explore Chinatown, hoping to see some of the Chinese New Year festivities that we sought but failed to find in Chinatown on the first leg of this trip. Happily, Chinatown was now active. We looked around, walked down the food street, and ate dinner in the Chinatown Complex hawker centre. The temperature was pleasant at first, but later in the evening it became hot and sticky.

From dinner, after a brief but necessary detour, we headed to Marina Bay to catch the special Chinese New Year excitement. Precisely, I wanted to see the Chingay Parade and to re-visit the River Hongbao festival at night. (This night, Saturday night, was the last day for each of these events.) The opportunity for seeing Chinese New Year festivities are why I chose to go to Singapore over the holiday and why I planned the exact Singapore and Cambodia travel dates I did.

The celebrations were fun, energetic, dazzling spectacles. See the pictures. Incidentally, I say this even disregarding the fireworks that we saw unexpectedly.

Di Yin tried to convince me not to go to Marina Bay for these events (because my stomach was acting up) and often pushed me to leave early (because she doesn't like crowds). I'm still annoyed at her for acting so unhappy during the last half of our excursion. Though seeing Chinatown and Chinese New Year festivities was the point of / highlight of my trip to Singapore, I now think of these events with a mixed memory. [I wrote this paragraph later that day. However, by the time I posted this entry, I'd forgotten about the incident.]