River Hong Bao 2010

The River Hong Bao is a yearly carnival held near the Singapore river during the Chinese New Year. This year the fair is held at the floating platform at near the Esplanade at Marina Bay. I don’t remember ever visiting this event before so I decided to go there last night. It was the first day of the Lunar New Year and the fair was incredibly crowded so it was really difficult to take photos there. Through sheer determination though, I managed to snap quite a few shots.

The route to the fair.

The map.

Popcorn.

A small makeshift tent was set up on the way selling popcorns and drinks. It was the only shop selling anything edible in the entire area so business was good.

Many amusement rides had been brought in for the carnival. They were located just outside the main fair grounds. The machines were quite large but they did not have a roller coaster.

The rides.

Machine that flung riders 180 degrees into the air.

Hanging merry-go-round. It was the most popular ride.

Too fast to capture.

Bumper cars.

Entrance to main fair.

People, people, people.

There were various shops along the path. Apart from a lottery booth, the other shops sold completely random items. Some of which had nothing to do with the Lunar New Year at all. Some of these shops came in from China.

Shop selling stuffed pandas from China.

You actually had to pay just to play with the shadow puppets.

Spectator area. Too far away from the happenings though.

View from above.

Under the stands.

I took a detour to under the seating area. More carnival stands had been set up below, mostly carnival games and activities for younger children. The location was terrible though. Lots of beams and very little lighting. It looked like some sort of industrial area. If they had clowns, it would had been the stuff of nightmares.

Carnival game.

Inflatable slide and bouncy castle.

Super Monkey Ball.

Back outside.

There were a lot of laterns being featured at the floating platform. There is already a Chinese festival dedicated to laterns in the later parts of each year so I’m not entirely sure what laterns have to do with the Lunar New Year.

The laterns on display were really built more like floats than actual laterns. But they were labelled as laterns anyways. Apparently they were were brought in all the way from Chendu in China. Chinese people really like laterns.

Giant wealth god latern.

Bridge to latern area.

Dragon latern float shrine thingy.

Gold coin and ingot tree latern.

Stage.

There was a large stage at one corner of the fair. The seats nearer to the stage were blocked off. Probably have to pay to enter. First, a Chinese guy wearing a Michael Jackson mask appeared on stage to the music of Beat It. A rather untasteful mockery. Then a woman sang some songs in an unknown dialect. The crowd was unmoved by her performance. Sounded like she was holding back her tears as she gave her scripted thank you speech.

Lots of people were taking photos at this ugly thing.

Some of the tigers' heads move...at disturbing angles.

Guy on a smaller stage asking people to guess something.

Humping goldfish float.

They also had one latern float for each of the 12 different zodiac animals.

Dragon. Probably the nicest among the twelve.

Rabbit.

Exactly the same as one from the larger display except this one didn't move.

Jaundiced ox.

Rat.

Took me a while to realize this is a pig.

Dog. They were probably running out of materials or paint.

Rooster. Another one of the nicer ones.

Monkey.

Goat.

A horse that is about to meet it's maker.

Snake.

Really creepy display. The dolls rotated.

The centerpiece. Made out of spoons.

Well that was all the displays at the fair. On the way out I found a few more rides hidden behind the other attractions.

Extreme pirate ship.

Closeup. Passengers had to be strapped down and caged.

Mega Drop. Only that it didn't really drop. It just fell casually at intervals of about 3 meters.

Last shot before heading home.