Not exactly how you would expect a post on a visit to the Chinese garden to start is it? I have decided to try and catch up and write a couple of back posts to update what we have done over the last couple of months. Even though today was a lovely public holiday for Diwali/Deepavali we didn't venture too far away and just enjoyed having Steve around for the day.
So back to the Lantern Festival... The Mid-Autumn Festival as it is known fell at the end of September beginning of October this year. Walking around the shops at this time of year it is impossible not to miss the abundance of mooncakes for sale, many of the hotels have their own speciality flavours. None of which call for me to devour them. Another highlight of the Mid-Autumn Festival is the Lantern parades. Throughout the island there are various organised and impromptu processions of children with lanterns and hopefully some adults along for the ride. There are various types of lanterns from the traditional rice paper and candle to plastic LED lit affairs.
This year we went with some friends to the Chinese Gardens to enjoy the floats and soak up the atmosphere. There were six adults and seven children (6 and under) in all, party of 13... So one maxi and one standard taxi later we arrived at the gardens with some very exited children. After one of us managed to go and purchase the correct number of tickets we were off...
Spot the missing child??? Well there are a few not in that photo but before all the adults were on the rise of the bridge we realised we were already down a child. Zac was off in a world of his own back at the ticket gate, we were all joking along and it wasn't really until a ticket collecter came running up to us all to as if we were "missing a key, blonde this high..." that we realised we were missing a blonde kid.
We gathered the seven back together and headed off again. There were some small sideshow alley type rides around the garden as well as the display of larger lanterns scattered around. This years theme was fairytales, both eastern and western.
We managed to find our way to the makeshift Hawker/fastfood stall and attempted to eat something. The smell from the appropriately named "stinky tofu"dish was just too much and we abandoned all thoughts of food and made our way to where we thought we might begin our little lantern walk.
Gathering everyone together to hold their lanterns carefully was no mean feat and I think we probably broke the record for how quickly a lantern went up in flames after being given to a child to carry... Once again it was Zac, the sight of the fire was enough to scare all the kids out of carrying the lanterns with a naked flame so it was down to the plastic fantastic butterfly wands we were given as part of the tickets.
After the excitement of all that it was a walk around, steering the children in the direction of the exit, and taxis home to bed.
A thoroughly enjoyable evening even if the locals think we are all a bunch of nutters.
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