The Mid Autumn Festival is a traditional Chinese festival which takes place in autumn. (Since the date is calculated due to the moon calendar it varies from year to year). A Chinese friend here told me that you traditionally eat Moon Cake (special pastry), light lanterns and get together with friends and family. So we decided to get to know some local traditions and go to the Lantern Festival (the Singaporean term for it) in Chinese Garden.
The festival there was a bit bigger than expected. The first thing we had to do was to queue for some tickets. But eventually we got in and could admire the place. The main attraction were all the illuminated figures and statues. The motto this year was "F8 Hello Kitty Go Races" - so you can imagine which figures you could see. Apart from that there were many little attractions for children, food stalls and different craftsmen. We could as well watch a group of Chinese artists performing a kind of dragon dance.
But except for the dragon dance we couldn't find anything like traditional customs, the festival resambled rather a fair. We agreed that the whole thing is exaggeratedly colourful - sometimes the colours really hurt in your eyes. But we really missed the traditional flavour. It seemed all very commercial and plastic-like. So my conclusion is: Interesting to see but you don't really miss much if you don't. But anyway I could take some nice pictures. (Okay the HDR isn't really nice - I try to do it better when I have time)
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