Chinese New Year - Bintan and Hong Bao

Gong Xi Fa Cai! We celebrated Chinese New Year in lots of ways this year. We saw so many lion dances that the kids started doing them outside one day with towels over them. They were pretty good, too!

We spent a few days in Bintan at the Nirwana Gardens Resort. It was a very relaxing trip and we just swam and relaxed. We went to a great lion dance performance and watched some live singing while the kids played in a big foam pit!

Back in Singapore, we went out with friends for a traditional CNY meal of Yu Sheng. This is a salad that is brought to the table in parts, then everyone sitting at the table helps to put the salad together and then everyone grabs their chopsticks and "tosses" the salad together trying to toss it as high in the air as possible! Then everyone says something about having an auspicious new year and we sit down to eat it. Very interesting and tasty!

We also headed over to the River Hong Bao again this year. This is an amazing festival in downtown Singapore celebrating CNY. They have incredible sculptures of all the zodiac animals and lots of live entertainment. The boys loved running around and finding their "animal" and getting their photos with them. This year they even had carnival rides.

There are so many traditions to the Chinese New Year that I think it will take me a long time to learn all of them but it is fun to take part in whatever we can while we are here. While I was in Chinatown I bought a few lanterns we brought them up ot our roof, lit them, and watched them float away. That is one of my most favorite things. . . so peaceful and pretty.