On Saturday night the husband and I had nothing to do, so we headed down to Chinatown after dinner. It’s been a number of years since I last went to the Chinese New Year bazaar there, so the husband decided that we should go to take a look. It was raining earlier in the day, and still drizzling when we got to Chinatown, but that didn’t seem to deter people from visiting at all. It wasn’t too crowded when we first reached there, but as it got later into the night, the place got so crowded that it became so difficult to even walk, much less take a look at what the stalls were selling and taking photos.

It’s a photo-intensive post, so the rest goes under the cut!

Most of the stalls are selling similar items, and with the exception of the food stalls, most people were browsing and few were buying. But here in Singapore, not a lot of people seem to decorate their houses for the new year, so decorative items probably won’t sell that well anyway. The festive mood doesn’t feel that strong here either – Chinatown and River Hongbao are pretty much the only places with a large crowd and strong festive feel. I’ve heard that it’s livelier in places such as Malaysia (the Chinese states at least) and China, and it’d be interesting to experience Chinese New Year there in the future.

We came across Patricia Mok and Pornsak doing some filming along the way, and as we were heading back to the carpark, we saw many other local TV personalities having a rehearsal for the CNY eve show. The crowd was just getting larger and larger, so we got out of the place and headed home, have seen enough to last us for a good while.