Sunday 23 September 2007

Lantern Festival - Chinese Garden







Take The East West MRT line past Jurong station and you end up at Chinese Garden.

Once a year to celebrate the Autumn Lantern festival, there is a special display mounted in the gardens surrounding the lake and the pagoda.

We enjoyed the spectacle last evening and it was well worth the $S12 per adult admission.

The evening was sultry but there was a gentle breeze off the water which cooled things down.

The other noticeable thing about the Mid-Autumn festival is the re-appearance of the ubiquitous Mooncake.

Being a traditionalist at heart I enjoy the white lotus paste filling with double duck egg yolks in the Cantonese style. The combination of the saltiness of the duck egss and the sweetness of the lotus paste may not be to Western tastes but one bite and I took to them like a duck to water, if you will excuse the pun!

This year the cake have been a bit pricier as thousands of the duck eggs from China were rejected by the Singapore Food authorities.

Another moon cake popular in Singapore are Teochew Yam Mooncakes which have a spiralled, flaky crust.

Other traditonal festival foods include the eating of Pomelo (the Ipoh variety from Malaysia are very sweet), piglet biscuits, baby yams and a most unusual nut called Niu Jiao Jian (Bull's Horn). They were on sale in our local Cold Storage supermarket (see image above left). I have yet to sample Niu Jiao Jian but shall do so when there is a chance to try some.

4 comments:

Puffy said...

Hi Roger,

Wonderful shots you got here, love those lighting

Roger Smith said...

Yes they were beautiful lanterns. Not all were'traditional' in style. There was a visible touch of the 'Nemo's' about some of them

Gosia and Henny said...

Hi
greetings from the netherlands. My name is Henny and I just happened to stumble on your website by coincidence. I liked to read about your observations on Singapore. I was once in Singapore. But that was more than 18 years ago

Beautiful photos!

I will stop bye once in a while if I may

greetings
Henny & Gosia
http://gosiad.blogspot.com

Roger Smith said...

Hi Henny,
Thank you for your kind words. If you enjoy phtoos you may like to look at one of my other sites?
www.worldlense.com

best wishes
Roger