To keep the crowd (which had started packing in as early as 5pm) entertained, there was also a fire-juggler and an inflated God of Fortune mascot. Here is a picture I took of the mascot walking by. The emcees had encouraged the crowd to reach out and stroke its tummy for good luck and it certainly wasn't easy for the mascot to make its way along.
The ceremony started about 7.30pm when the guest of honor arrived. I was seated behind the main stage (which is where the crowd is allowed to gather) as you can see from the photo below. The photo below is of the ministers (and probably some other VIPs) on the stage just before the launch of the light-up ceremony in Chinatown. To mark the moment when all the decorations for CNY would light up, pink balloons were released by the ministers. You can see the balloons drifting up in the sky near the roof the building in the picture. As for the flags and people in the foreground, these belong to the lion dance teams from various countries like Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia. Apparently there was a lion dance competition the day before and the winners were announced today. Third place went to a team from Malaysia, second place to a team from China and first place to a team from Singapore. Go Singapore!
The fireworks at Chinatown went off about 9.20pm. According to the news, there will be fireworks for the next three Saturdays at the Singapore River near Clarke Quay. Most people left after the fireworks. Here is a picture of the start of the Chinese New Year lightup at Chinatown for 2010. The two creatures at the top are tigers of course!
I managed to take some photos of this year (2010)'s Chinatown Chinese New Year decorations from my car. The decorations are all along Eu Tong Sen Street. The decorations starts here.
As you can see from the picture below, theme this year is Spring, hence the many fake Cherry Blossom plants lining the road.
I thought I'll also show some pictures from last year (2009)'s Chinatown Chinese New Year decorations (which were oranges instead of cherry blossoms) and light up too for comparison sake. Instead of the two tigers for 2010 (above pic), we had this large Chinese character in red instead (Chun2) which means Spring in chinese. The animal for 2009 is an ox, hence the cow statues under the word (Chun2). If you are wondering about the two rats next to the cow, the rat is the animal for the outgoing year 2008. Between the two decorations, I think last year's is nicer :)
This is a picture we took of the giant inflatable God of Fortune erected along Eu Tong Sen Street last year. From the opening ceremony today, it looks like it has been blown up once more and is standing proudly along the same street and in the same spot as last year! However, I couldn't get a picture from where I did last year (to get this picture) as certain parts of Chinatown (in particular, access to bridges) were blocked off tonight because of the VIPs coming for the opening ceremony.
The picture below was taken by my friend from KL whom I had brought to soak in the atmosphere at Chinatown. For visitors, I'll say that coming to Singapore during the Chinese New Year period is certainly one of the best times of the year to visit Singapore because of the decorations and various celebrations going on, especially in Chinatown, and on the eve of Chinese New Year at Chinatown.
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