The Mid-Autumn Festival is my favourite Chinese festival because I just love the sight of the lanterns hanging everywhere. It’s so pretty! And there’s also mooncakes to eat. I love all the variety we get here. It’s rather mind-boggling with exotic flavours like rose petals & raspberry filling, pumpkins & pine nuts, durian, green tea, black sesame, custard, strawberry, chocolate etc. A few weekends ago, I was at the Taka basement trying out each and every one of these flavours. Haha.
Last Friday I had dinner at the Esplanade and was happy to see that there were lanterns hanging on the lamp posts along the Esplanade Walk. The lanterns were really pretty and there was even a Chinese Riddle contest going on. Solving Chinese riddles is an essential part of the Mid-Autumn Festivities, but my friend and I were hopeless at it. Couldn’t solve a single one despite our best efforts.
Anyway, the full moon was shining nice and bright last night, and My mum and I went to the Lian Shan Shuang Lin Monastery at Toa Payoh to have a look after it was reported in yesterday’s newspapers that there were many lanterns on display there.
It was the first time we went to that monastery, and it was an interesting visit. The lanterns of different shapes, sizes and colours were lovely. There were many devotees there to pay their respect to Buddha. I don’t actually think this is a religious festival, but I think Buddhists just take this opportunity to use it as a day of worship.
There were also two small exhibitions there, one a Bonsai exhibition and the other one on Chinese calligraphy. I felt more like a tourist there because I wasn’t actually there to pray. Still, every time I passed a statue of a Buddha I would place my palms together and offer a prayer as a sign of respect.
I would have put some photos up if not for the fact that I didn’t have my digital camera with me. I had lent it to my aunt and haven’t gotten it back from her yet. Pity….it was a nice sight with all the lanterns.
Anyway, last night’s trip to the monastery was an interesting excursion of sorts. On the way home, we also saw Malay children playing with lanterns and I just thought it was really heartwarming to see people of other races and religions taking part in the festivities as well.
The ironic thing about yesterday was that I didn’t eat a single piece of mooncake. Heh.