Money and You Get Rich

Chinese New Year this year raises the spectre, as it does every year, of horrible Hokkien Chinese songs extolling the importance of money and getting rich and/or the its direct link to the happiness in the coming year. Well. And too many relatives in a too small, cramped HDB flat with too oily food. Here's hoping that the two Estonians will provide much needed company, or if the need arises, sufficient distraction.

Reunion dinner is a boring steamboat affair (again) and we proceed to eat until we are too stuffed or sweaty or in pain from all the chilli. Already the ploy to save my sanity by using the Estonians is paying off. After a little resting and dozing off, we go to River Hongbao, which, once again, will be the first for all of us.


We park the car at Central and then walk down most parts of the Civic District towards the river. I'm beginning to like the city the way I did when I was still in Central.

Fireworks this time round arent such a massive affair, but was still breathtaking nonetheless.

River Hongbao is an orgy of sights and sounds that abuse the senses with red, horrid, tacky, jarring statuettes and songs. This can only be the work of a group of Chinese organisations, at the instigation of the STB, to draw people from all over to usher in the Spring Festival in the traditional Chinese way. Oh, for godssakes. Okeiko and W6za know immediately when they see this that it is, unfortunately, a literal and figurative money tree.

Away from the madding crowd, we visit a temple