Friday, February 26, 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!!!!






























































































































































































































And now let me show you some of the floats we saw there. Absolutely spectacular, Disney has nothing on this light parade!!!! The first float came from where Jonathon is working...Resort World Sentosa's Universal Theme Park...

















































































































So I hope you enjoy my little glimpse of the Chingay Parade. As I said, this is a spectacular display and I'll let you know when I've got the videos up on the website. I'll be back in a couple of days to tell you all about my surprise trip to Indonesia! Courtesy of my sweet baboo!!!

Hugs to all,

CJ England
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Follow Your Dreams
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5 comments:

SJR said...

Hi CJ,
Another super blog post! I see you've gained a 'Singapore fan' ~ Jeremy.
I miss your replies tho.
Thanks for the memories.
Sara J. ~ : - ]
sjr1groups@yahoo.com

Phylis said...

WOW! Can't wait to see videos! Have fun!

CJ England said...

Jeremy,

Wow! Thanks! Those pics and the background info is soooooo cool. I hope I did justice to what I saw.

CJ

CJ England said...

Sara J,

I'm late, but I try to reply when I'm gone like that. I'm glad you're enjoying the blog. It's so much fun sharing stuff with y'all.

CJ

CJ England said...

Phylis,

I'm going to try and get them up asap. I'm working in Photobucket to see if that will hold them.

CJ