Singapore Heritage Festival - Sights at Street Parties

Like a party animal, I roam down from Telok Ayer, to Bukit Pasoh to Keong Siak Street and even to A Taste of Heritage at National Museum. All thanks to the great Singapore Heritage Festival events organised by the NHB.

A Taste of Heritage
Did you know food stalls used to line the grounds of the National Museum in the 1960s? Several stall holders relived the good old street food culture were seen selling their dishes here, including my favorite Tong Heng.

Street vendors.

Paper Monkey Theatre Teochew Metal Rod Puppet show

Little One and I enjoyed ourselves tremendously at the performance, Web of Deceit, by the Paper Monkey Theatre. Web of Deceit is one of the episodes in Journey to the West, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.

Bukit Pasoh Street Party

It was a  wonderful party. I had some chicken wings from the New Majestic Hotel while waiting for performance to start. It was yummilicious! Although we did not watch all the performance but we did managed to watch those that we like, eg the dance performance by Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan Dance Theatre Limited. Not to mention lion dances! It is not easy to catch performance on such a street as it was rather flat road. It is not very child friendly. Hence, I saw many parents carrying their children while watching performances. I am not sure why but towards the end of the programme, many were seen sitting around the performers. Probably, many were tired from all the standing and walking around the road at the end of the day We knew we were.

Various performances

There are plenty to see! From olden days hawkers to mata (policemen) to majie (olden days domestic helpers who had taken a vow of celibacy before a deity on an altar, in front of a witness, to never marry)

Dragon dance by Kong Chow Wui Koon

We feasted our eyes on the first Northern Lion Dance by Singapore Chin Woo Athletic Association. They were playful and energetic! The emcee mentioned that the family members of the members of the Association had sewn these lions!

Northern Lion Dance by  Singapore Chin Woo Athletic Association.  Northern lions often dance as a pair. The pair of adult Northern Lions are made up of a female and a male.Their gender were differentiated by the color of the ribbon that is tied on the lions’ head.. The female Northern Lion has a green colored ribbon tied on, while the male has a red colored ribbon. 

Finally, we also get to see Singapore Hok San Association's performance! Theirs is a southern lion. Great cat-like movement! 

"Plucking the green" performance by the Singapore Hok San Association.

Chin Woo was spotted doing some warming up. A number of kids joined in to do stretching cartwheel and somersault

Urban Ventures at Keong Siak Road

Keong Siak Road, which is located nearby , had various activities organised for the public too! There were people practicing their yoga on the closed roads. A few crafts stalls and quite a number were drawing what they saw on Keong Siak Road, mostly the iconic building below, which used to house the Tong Ah Eating House.

The iconic Tong Ah Eating House. Potato Head had taken over now.

Potato Head

Temples like this can be seen in the midst of rows of shophouses. Pretty contrasting against the shophouses. 

Thian Hock Keng Ma Zu Dan Celebration

Hokkien Huay Kuan had organised various events to celebrate the birthday of the Goddess of the Sea. Some include lion dance, puppet show and Getai. Below are just some of the photos, you may want to read more on this post.

Devotees at Thian Hock Keng

Hokkien Strng puppet show. Probably it happened during the day, there wasn't any crowd.

A whole load of celebration

Linking with~

A night of NanYin at Kusu Island

Have you heard of the legend of Kusu Island?
There are many versions if you were to google it. The most common belief was that a giant tortoise turned itself into an island in order to save 2 drowning fishermen, a Chinese and a Malay. That was why Kusu Island had the shape of a tortoise. However, if you were to google the shape of the island now, it looks nothing like tortoise because this island had undergone reclamation.

The Singapore Heritage Festival (SHF) took place in July, the theme this year was Our Islands, Our Home. I wanted to go for Nanyin (songs from the South) at Kusu (Chinese Hokkien for Tortoise) Island. However, it was fully booked and due to the overwhelming response, additional tours was conducted in September. I was lucky enough to go after balloting.

Participants would visit the Tua Pek Kong's (Da Bo Gong) temple on the island and if they want to, they could also visit the 3 Muslim keramats on top of a hillock which was located just next to the temple. However, visitors would need to climb 152 steps to visit these Malay shrines. The night ends with a Nanyin performance, a special arrangement for SHF, by the Siong Leng Musical Association (established 1941) at the temple. This musical  performance is usually held during the Kusu pilgrimage (which occurs in the ninth lunar month)

I was truly excited when I got to know we could visit the island. It would be my first visit. My sister who had been there when she was very young, remembered getting sea sicked and vomited! Good gracious! As my husband and I would be bringing Little One along, we are naturally worried whether the same would happen to her. I tried find anti seasickness band in pharmacies but could not find any. Hence, we crossed our fingers and hope every thing would go well. I did prepare plastic bags just in case. We also brought light food to be eaten for dinner that night, another precaution for sea sickness. The journey from Singapore to Kusu Island is about 30-45min depending on the condition of the waves. We were glad that my little girl survived the ferry trip without much problem. I guess my sister could have traveled on those small and unstable boats that were used in the past.

Facts about Kusu Island
Kusu Island is about 5.6 kilometre to the south of Singapore. It was initially 1.2 ha but due to landfill and reclamation in 1975 joined it with another coral outcrop, it had increase to  8.5 ha island.

Pilgrimage to Kusu began as early as 1813, the year of Syed Abdul Rahman's death. Hence, the tradition of the pilgrimage had started before Sir Thomas Raffles arrived Singapore in 1819. When the island (known as Peak Island then) became the burial site for immigrants who died in quarantine on St. John's and Lazarus Islands in the late 19th century, many of the devotees were unhappy about the use of the sacred place as a burial ground,

It is noted no overnight stay is allowed on the island. There is no street lamp on the island.

Our trip
This is our second family trip exploring islands of Singapore. The first one was just a few days ago to Pulau Ubin.

My daughter's excited about the trip. The tag she had on is our group name. SHF utilised many guides as there  were more than 100 people on tour that night.

Cheng Ho Cruise Ship, a replica of the actual ship that Cheng Ho comes to Singapore in! It tours around the southern coast of Singapore as well as provide a landing on Kusu Island. I wish to board this instead!

This was the cruise ship we boarded. 

Welcome to Kusu Island!

A rather serene view of the island

Our 1st Trip to Univeral Studio Singapore

Hubby planned for this before his Reservist is due. We tried almost all the rides. 
Recommended Transformers : The Ultimate 3D Battle, Jurassic Park Rapid Adventures.
Enjoy Action Packed movie? Watch Lights, Camera, Action! and Water World. Thanks to our family members, making this trip possible! =)

Delightful Sunday - thanks to Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia

When I saw Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia is coming to town to perform the puppet show A Brown Bear, a Moon, and a Caterpiller: Treasured Stories by Eric Carle, I was all excited. Reason being I fell in love Eric Carle's books ever since I saw a finger puppet book of The Very Hungry Caterpillar! Since my little girl's term book is The Very Hungry Caterpillar, we finally decided to get our tickets on the 27th July. * I know this is late blogging about the performance since the last show was last Sunday,  29th July. We didn't get the tickets early as we had programmes on the first few weekends when they started performing*

So, I brought the girl to watch it on the last day of performance. The play was held at Genexis Theatre (Fusionopolis). Just to share, this theatre is not stroller friendly, the lifts only stop at level 3 while the theatre is located at level 6. Therefore, it is better not to bring any stroller / prams when you are bringing your little ones to any shows.

We arrived on the dot, the show was starting! We hurried to our seats. It started with introducing the 3 main characters, The Caterpillar, the Brown Bear and the Moon.  This is a 'no-shushing' show! Excited children were chatting, parents were talking to their kids, of course.  I was very captivated by the way the puppeteer moved the caterpillar, it was very animated. I thought it looks cute! 

The experience was not exactly the same as the Playtime performance at Esplanade (A series designed for audiences aged two to four that seeks to nurture their interest in performing arts) when I brought little one to watch The Noisy Zoo. 

This is because 

1. we have a fixed sitting arrangement. Unlike in Playtime whereby we can move around as there is no fixed sitting arrangement. We were all sitting on the floor then and children could actually stand up and interact with the puppeteers if they wanted to.  
2. we can't see the puppeteers in A Brown Bear, a Moon, and a Caterpillar. They wore black clothes, completed with black masks. With the clever usage of black lights, all the items in black could not be easily seen. This ensures that we focus and watch the characters of the play instead of the puppeteers. The Playtime performance, however, we get to see the puppeteers moving with their puppets. 
3. the puppets are much bigger in size. Definitely! Otherwise, how to incorporate small puppets for show meant for a theatre of people?
4. Lots and lots more props!

The performance followed exactly the story of the 3 books:-

The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?, and Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me.

The very Hungry Caterpillar

This is the book most parents are familiar with, I would say. Throughout the story, I can heard parents (including me) whispering to their kids, How many...(fruits)? What's that?. 

I love how this little caterpillar moves, how it flicks the fruits away after eating, how it become sick after eating too much junky food.

However some facts about caterpillar are not correct. Oops, I am looking at scientific point of view.

1. Caterpillar doesn't just crawl out from the egg like a chicken. Most caterpillars actually eats its shell. My guess is the caterpillar actually eats its way out. Probably, Mermaid Theatre could improvise and make the caterpillar flick away the egg shell after eating just like how it did for the first 5 fruits.
2. When the caterpillar change into chrysalis.(Cocoon/ pupa) The split begins from the bottom near the "head" and, within minutes, the dead larval skin will worked upwards. Not the other way round. I hadn't thought of a solution yet on how to make this possible for the performance. 

Anyway, it's not really that important. We are introducing basic concepts to children. Don't make it too complicated.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?

This series of puppets were the latest collection in Mermaid Theatre. The book itself introduces different animals and colours. So , parents started asking, what's that (animal)? What colour... ?

Actually when I read the book, I felt it's quite a boring book. Throughout the story, it's repetitive phrases "..., what do you see?"  " I see ... looking at me". Repetition is good for toddlers who just started to converse. They pick up fast with repetition. I couldn't think of any good activities to do besides matching words to colours, counting animals. As this is a 3D play, everything is animated just like the real animals. The horse gallops. The frog jumps. Dog chases cat. So I start asking my girl to watch their movement and what they are doing? I think this is something you can't do with a 2D puppet.

Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me

This story was totally new to us. We only got the library book just yesterday and I think a lot of parents seemed to be not familiar with this either. Most of the parents were watching silently to the story. And this story is the one I enjoyed most because the moon really disappears after 3 flips! How to do that with only 1 board in sight?!? I wondered. 

_____________________

Well, I'm glad there's Talkback (QnA) Session. The puppeteers explained how they could remain 'invisible' while handling their puppets. And children were encouraged to ask question about the performance or to request for their favourite animal to be shown again. We were allowed only 3 questions. 

Children requested for the Brown Bear to be display again. The puppeteer showed how she moved it.

And it does look heavy.

The second request was how did the moon disappear? Yeah! Exactly what I wanted to know and the secret is flipping and the use of an additional black prop! I think it's brilliant ! 

The last question was how to make the cocoon appear? This involves rolling up the painting of the cocoon which was attached to a tree prop and rolling it down slowing and swinging the caterpillar at the same time. 

I'm glad my girl enjoyed the show. She was laughing at parts of the performance. Particularly the first 2 stories. And my girl's favourite character? It's the Green Frog from Brown Bear.

Next to watch is the Magic Ocean ( 1st Aug to 5th Aug) by Esplanade's Playtime if I could get the tickets, that is.