08 February 2016 is the start of the monkey year in the Chinese zodiac calendar and being a monkey myself (born in 1980), i am excited as this primate year comes into play only once every twelve years!
How many twelve years can we get as a mere human!?
Although part of my annual routine to check out the festive decorations at Chinatown (Singapore), i made it a point to visit much earlier this year for two reasons; one, it's my year, two, the area would be much more crowded as lunar new year draws nearer.
Personally, i feel that this year's design and decoration fail to impress.
I was expecting a humongous gozilla-sized monkey to take the centrepiece spot in between Eu Tong Sen street and New Bridge Road but it was nothing more than a 12-meter high tree with monkeys dangling from it; peach tree to be exact as Sun Wu Kong loves peaches.
C'mon, Singapore has about "about two million trees planted along roadsides, in parks and protected nature areas (according to NParks)" and we honestly don't need a fake one to add to the quota!
Took a top-down view of the tree from a great place; location of which i might share on a later stage as only a handful of photographers are aware of its existence.
Street view again - even the "lanterns" hung across the two busy roads are boring with two basic colours embossed with the images of the twelve zodiac animals.
I thought this picture was pretty well taken!
In case you are not aware of the information, there are a total of 2,668 handcrafted lanterns and that includes the monkeys, the zodiac animal lanterns i shared earlier and the peaches.
Many of them are placed at the grass strip in between Since Eu Tong Sen street and New Bridge Road and since both roads remain open to the cars, it's a challenge to walk across and take a much-needed selfie.
Those observant enough might notice that there are two types of monkey; one looked quite like your typical monkey while the other had a more comical expression.
Street decorations for Chinatown usually take place along two locations and so far, we have only been talking about one. The other one is along South Bridge road which is generally less exciting given the limited space.
I kid you not; the atmosphere i got was that from a circus with dog like creatures attempting a tightrope crossing with happy, relaxed expressions.
Can't blame me when those peaches look like balls from far! The most creative decoration to have taken place along this road was during the year of the snake. You may click here to check out the pictures.
Next up shall the street bazaar! Do look out for it.
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Duration
From 16 January to 8 March 2016