Friday, January 1, 2010

Chinese New Year Pt. Four - The Spectacular Chingay Parade

Hey all,

This is the last of the installments about the wonderful Chinese New Year. I've saved the most amazing to end the series. The Chingay Parade.

Now, when we heard about this parade, we knew we wanted to go, but we really didn' t have any idea what we were getting ourselves into.

They say this about the parade itself...

The word Chingay is from the Hokkien dialect, of which the Mandarin equivalent is Zhuang Yi (妆艺), meaning "the art of masquerade". Started in 1973, this national festival of Singapore began as a neighborhood parade and was a totally Chinese event then. Today, the parade has evolved to be the grandest street and floats parade in Asia, showcasing the rich, vibrant multi-ethnic and cosmopolitan cultures of Singapore and exciting performances from overseas, Held during the Chinese New Year's period thousands of individuals, organizations, local international communities and private sectors in Singapore come together to take part in this grand and highly spectacular festival every year.

I have to say it was the most spectacular parade I've ever seen and remember, I've seen some pretty damn good parades! But this one was like a mixture of Disneyland light parade and a Las Vegas Show. The lights, the costumes, the floats were beyond anything I've ever seen.

But rather than tell you, let me show you. The following are some of the fantastic costumes that were seen. And remember, each one you see, you can times in by 100. There were that many of them!!!!





















































































Now let me show you some of the floats. They are absolutely amazing. This first one is from the Universal Studios Sentosa where my darling Jonathon works!!!












































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