Clark Quay New Year 2010

After the hike through Chinatown, we ended up heading to Clark Quay for dinner. Clark Quay is home to many pubs, clubs and restaurants. It’s a popular spot in Singapore, especially among tourists and expats who flock here for the nightlife. Lunar New Year events were being held this season to help draw in the crowd.

We had some time to kill after dinner so we walked around the area. It was quite lively there this evening but not nearly as bad as Chinatown. Some of the pubs were decorated for the occasion.

Clark Quay.

Lunar New Year theme at the Arena club.

A large crowd had gathered at the central square among the pubs. An event was going on here. Lots of over dressed people stuck in a tiny space little space. Felt kind of awkward since to hold an up class event in a public area right next to all the other pubs. Lots of stares from the rest of the crowd outside. Kind of like a zoo enclosure. The decorations were a lot more Christmas than New Year’s and the staff were even dressed up as angels. This duo which I’ve seen previously at Timbre were performing live there. They play Simon and Garkfunkel covers.

Quite a crowd had gathered at the central square.

Live performances.

Lots of other pubs.

The management for Clark Quay employed some performers to play at the bridge. There was five piece Chinese orchestra there. In front of them was a large canvas with Chinese characters written on them. Something about good fortune. They also had a guy dressed up in Kung Fu clothes writing these words on smaller pieces of paper to give away to people passing by.

Chinese orchestra on the bridge.

Chinese calligraphy.

Giving away pieces of paper with written blessings.

Lots of people with cameras everywhere. Many even lugging around heavy SLRs. A bunch of middle aged uncles with tripods were camping on the bridge. A little creepy at first. But it turned out there was going to be fireworks display. The show started just a short while after we got on the bridge. A fully grown Chinese man next to me repeatedly exclaimed “Star!” for every firework shot during the entire display, a little irritating and very disturbing indeed.

Camera uncles.

Close up of them.

Packed bridge.

After the fireworks displayed a short lion dance performance was held at the bridge.

The lion dance.

Acrobatics.

Harassing the crowd.

There was a small event at the Indochine Forbidden City. It’s new resident band was having a test run. MJ had some business to attend to so we dropped by for a while. Had some drinks and snacks at his expense. The head bartender looked just like Takenouchi Yutaka. The band started performing after a short while. The sound system was quite bad as the club was still in the midst of acquiring a new one so the vocals all came out as gibberish. I felt that they were a little stiff as well but MJ commented that it was because the stage was simply too small. It got better as they warmed up after a few songs.

Indochine Forbidden City.

Fried prawn gyoza.