February 5, 2019
Happy Chinese New Year!!! Or, Lunar New Year, as my friend Helena keeps bugging me even though all the locals say Chinese New Year here…
Today, Tuesday is only the beginning of the Chinese New Year celebrations. NTU was closed today and it will also be closed tomorrow. I had classes yesterday but they were actually cancelled by those professors because of Chinese New Year.
So, on Monday night I made sure to head out to Chinatown to see all the people starting to celebrate. I jumped on the MRT with a couple of other exchange students and headed towards the festivities. Once we got to the Chinatown station, there were so many people going in the same direction.
This 2019, is the year of the pig, so when we got to Chinatown there were many pig decorations and everything was red. I wore a red shirt to be festive, and surprisingly a very low number of people were actually wearing red. I bet you those few people were also from out of the country just like me. But, nonetheless people still displayed their excitement for the coming of a new year.
There were people wearing the traditional dragon costumes and greeting these women that were arriving in really nice cars. I still don’t know who those women are, but I will research it. I asked the people around me and no one seemed to know either.
We continued to walk around more and then we decided to go to the Marina Bay just in time for the fireworks at night. When we got there, we secured a good spot and waited until it was midnight. Mind you, the view I had…..was the most amazing view in front of me. I was on a metallic bridge facing the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and to my left I could see the Ferris wheel and to my right I could see the skyline. It was definitely the type of view that can’t be matched with any picture.
11:59….everyone gets out their cameras and make sure it is all ready for the countdown. BOOM…fireworks all over the sky color the night. It was an amazing fireworks show and I still can’t believe I saw that with my own eyes. These are the kind of moments you see on tv and wonder if you could ever be there yourself. I finally made that happen for myself!!! I am so happy that I was able to be there.