China Square Central/Chinatown Singapore

Found a nice place in Chinatown,most would only visit Smith Street and Pagoda Street in Chinatown. This is China Square Central, diagonally opposite Pagoda Street. I was there on one Saturday noon, am surprised to find it like a ghost town, so quiet and empty. It was only popular during weekday lunch time with the office people cause it was near the financial district.

It was a waste that this place was ignored. There's many nice restaurants, histories and the murals on the walls are cute and make good photography background. This place is also known as Samsui Village cause the Samsui women made their home in this area. You can read the history of them from infopedia.

Actually the quiet ambience made a good place to get together with friends and families at one of the many restaurants.

Lots of statues at China Square Centre telling the early history of Singapore.

I waste no time in taking photos of the many murals in this area.

As I walked along, I saw this little door leading to some place, I thought it was a temple but there's a hotel inside here.

Map of how to go to China Square Central, the nearest MRT Station must be Chinatown MRT Station and Telok Ayer MRT Station. Source of Map from the free Singapore Map found in most hotels, tourism board, airport, etc.

Chinatown

It is nice to take a slow walk in Chinatown especially walking towards Outram MRT Station. I seldom walk along this stretch of chinatown. Spotted Poon Yue Association, this is the association where my late in laws were members of.

The Poon Yue Association, which the Chinese philanthropist Hoo Ah Kay, more popularly known as Whampoa helped to form in 1879. The association started a school and provided accomodation for people from Poon Yue district of Guangdong.

Kwong Chow Wui Koon, one of the many Cantonese clan associations set up in the early 1920s. it was well-known for its music and opera show.

Sri Layan Sithi Vinayagar Temple is located in center of China Town at the junction of Keong Saik Road and Kreta Ayer Road. This temple that was built in 1925, has a very long history. You can read more about the history of the temple from its official website.

So many pigeons in the corner park near the temple, spotted a lone white pigeon among them.

Did not know there's so many restaurants in these rows of shophouses. Will try to visit another time and walk further in this stretch of the roads.

Outram MRT Station (NEL Line)

Chinatown - Mid Autumn Festival Decorations 2014

Mid Autum Festival Decorations in Chinatown during the day. I prefer to view them at night cause the wires/cables holding the decorations looked ugly during the day, at night only the lighted flowers could be seen.

Browsing and shopping in Chinatown during this festival is really fun. Love viewing the beautiful lanterns.

Those in plastic are usually lighted with a bulb and batteries while those see through (made of cellophane paper) are lighted by candles and of course they are easily burned if not handled carefully.

Backpacks comes in shapes of animal heads, so cute.

Luggages with millions characters, they seem popular.

Fridge magnet in shapes of fruits, oh i love the rambutan magnets.

Candy popular in china also can be seen in chinatown.

Chinatown Mid Autumn Festival Street Light Up for 2014

Last night, we went to Chinatown to watch the street light up for this year mid autumn festival.

The road were closed for the night event. The decorations and lights will be from Aug 24 until Sep 28

Everyone were so excited once the VIPs switched on the lights for the decorations.

Visitors to Chinatown will be able to see streets in full bloom, lit by 3,100 flower-shaped lanterns for the first time.

Some short videos on the event for the day.

Countdown to switching on the street light for Chinatown Mooncake Festival 2014

Dragon Dance on the stage and road - sorry for the shaky video cause I was too far from the stage, trying to zoom on the dragons.

Dragon Dance and fireworks

Got to use my handphone to continue the video of fireworks cause memory card full in my digital camera.