Chinese New Year

This year was our second time to experience Chinese New Year in Hong Kong so we thought we would share some of our experiences with you.

For a little background information, Chinese New Year,also known as the Spring Festival in modern China, is an important Chinese festival celebrated at the turn of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar.  Celebrations traditionally run from the evening preceding the first day, to the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first calendar month. The first day of the New Year falls on the new moon between January 21 and February 20.  In 2018, the first day of the Lunar New Year was on Friday, 16 February, initiating the year of the Dog.
Often, the evening preceding Lunar New Year's Day is an occasion for Chinese families to gather for the annual reunion dinner. It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly clean the house, in order to sweep away any ill-fortune and to make way for incoming good luck. Windows and doors are decorated with red colour paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of "good fortune" or "happiness", "wealth", and "longevity". Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red paper envelopes called Lai See.

          2018 - The Year of the Dog

Many of the Buildings showed electronic displays for New Years.

Orange Trees, a decoration for New Years, in front of the lobby to our Hotel.

A tree in the lobby of our Hotel decorated with Lie See Envelopes.  The tree was alive and you can see blossoms starting to come out.  We put money in Lai See Envelopes and gave them to some of the security guards at the hotel, some of the bus drivers and a few others.


There are several greeting spoken this time of year.  Below Sister Sorensen is wishing everyone, "Happiness and Prosperity".

For Family Home Evening with the Area Missionaries, Elder and Sister Yan had us prepare and eat a traditional Hot Pot Chinese New Year meal with the ingredients shown above.

Each person would put his own ingredients from the above picture into this pot of boiling water to cook.  Everyone was given two sets of chopsticks, one to put the food into and out of the pot and the other set to eat with.  Yes, we all ate with chopsticks, some doing better than others.


DRAGON DANCE

The dragon dance is often performed during Chinese New Year. Chinese dragons are a symbol of China's culture, and they are believed to bring good luck to people, therefore the longer the dragon in the dance, the more luck it will bring to the community. The dragons are believed to possess qualities that include great power, dignity, fertility, wisdom and auspiciousness.  The dance team simulates the imagined movements of this river spirit in a sinuous, undulating manner.

The following video shows an attempt by the Senior Missionaries at Family Home Evening to perform the Dragon Dance.  Feel free to use your imagination as to what a real dragon dance should look like.

Many stores featured decorations to be purchased to celebrate the new year.

Elder and Sister Sorensen looking down on one of the streets where vendors set up booths to sell their wares.  During Chinese New Year you can find items only available this time of year.

Flowers are a big part of New Years with many buying flowers to have in their homes this time of year.  Here is Flower Street where there are many flower shops year round but during New Years flowers were not only in the shops but in the streets as well.

Just one small part of the street selling flowers.

Small orange trees for sale.

Your guess is as good as ours as to what these are but we saw them for sale everywhere and only at New Years.

 The following pictures show some of the many varieties of flowers we saw.  It was fun to walk around and just look at the flowers for sale.

These are live bamboo shoots tied together to form a decoration.

Victoria Park on Hong Kong Island was set up with many rows of booths for vendors to sell from.  We went there for a few hours just to get a feeling for what it was like.

Just one of  the walkways with booths on both sides.

A different area of Victoria Park, same feeling with all the people.


Below is a video in Victoria Park doing a 360 in one of the walkways.  Hope you don't get dizzy watching it.




Fireworks

A fireworks display is a tradition for Chinese New Years.  The fireworks display is set off from barges in Victoria Bay.  We had been invited along with others to watch the display from the apartment of one of the area missionaries who has a great view.  The below video shows 45 seconds of a display that went on for over 25 minutes.  This display was last year but we wanted you to see what fireworks look like in Hong Kong.  (Note: The fireworks were cancelled this year because just before New Years a double decker bus turned over in Tai Po killing 19 and injuring over 65 more.  Because of the tragedy they didn't think it was appropriate to have the fire works display.)

Singapore - Part 2

Here is the second part of our trip to Singapore with Elder and Sister Chiu.  This time we will show only a few pictures of the plants and animals that we saw while visiting the River Safari, Flower Dome, Cloud Dome and Jurong Bird Park.

The River Safari is a river-themed zoo and aquarium located in Singapore.  It is the first of its kind in Asia and features freshwater attractions and river boat rides as its main highlights.  The park consists of a total of 10 different ecosystems around the world, including the River Nile, Yangtze river, Mississippi, Amazon as well as the Tundra. It features 5000 animals of 300 species, including numerous that are endangered. 

The Amazon Flooded Forest exhibit, which houses the manatees and various South American fish, contains 2,000 m (71,000 cu ft) of water and has a viewing panel that measures 22 m × 4 m (72 ft × 13 ft). Its volume and the size of the viewing panel are both world records for a freshwater aquarium.

Getting ready for the River Safari, this was not the boat we actually rode in.

Squirrel Monkeys trying to distract us from reading the signs.

We were inside the area with the monkeys free roaming in the trees.

This monkey was by a monkey exhibit but not inside the enclosure.  Not sure if he had escaped or was a local resident visiting.  When leaving the park we saw wild monkeys run across the road.

A Jaguar we saw on the Safari.

Elder Sorensen sizing up a Mekong Catfish while thinking "Where is my fishing pole".

Manatees.

One of the Pandas enjoying his lunch while laying on his back.

Picture with the Pandas, the real Pandas are the ones in front.

Gardens by the Bay is a nature park spanning 101 hectares (250 acres) of reclaimed land in central Singapore, adjacent to the Marina Reservoir. Gardens by the Bay is part of a strategy by the Singapore government to transform Singapore from a "Garden City" to a "City in a Garden". The stated aim is to raise the quality of life by enhancing greenery and flora in the city.

The conservatory complex at Gardens by the Bay comprises two cooled conservatories – the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest.  Both are very large (around 1 hectare (2.5 acres)) and the Flower Dome is the world's largest columnless glasshouse.

Panoramic view of Gardens by the Bay with Supertrees in the center and the Flower Dome and Cloud Dome on the left in the back.

Cloud Dome on the Cleft, Flower Dome Center, Supertrees right.

The Flower Dome is the larger of the two, at 1.2 hectares (3.0 acres). It replicates a mild, dry climate and features plants found in the Mediterranean and other semi-arid tropical regions (e.g. parts of Australia, South America, South Africa).  The Flower Dome is 38 metres (125 ft) high and maintains a temperature between 23 °C and 25 °C, slightly lower at night.

Sister Chiu with Alice in Wonderland.  Notice all the live plants everywhere.

Elder Chiu singing opera with The Queen of Hearts.

These were live trees inside the dome.

Dragon in a tree.

You thought Santa's Cabin was in the North Pole and here it is in Singapore.

The Cloud Forest is slightly smaller at 0.8 hectares (2.0 acres). It replicates the cool moist conditions found in tropical mountain regions between 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) and 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) above sea level, found in South-East Asia, Middle- and South America. The "Cloud Mountain" itself is an intricate structure completely clad in epiphytes such as orchids, ferns, peacock ferns, spike- and clubmosses, bromeliads and anthuriums.  It consists of a number of levels, each with a different theme.

Sister Chiu and Sister Sorensen inside the Cloud Dome.

 

Looking down on a couple having wedding pictures taken inside the dome.

All of this mountain is live plants.

Looking at the mountain of flowers from higher up.

Beautiful flowers and unique flower pots.

 The following pictures some of the flowers we saw in the Cloud Dome.

It is hard to show in a picture all of the plants that were inside the Cloud Dome and how large it is but this is just a small part of it.

Supertree Grove

Supertrees are tree-like structures that dominate the Gardens' landscape with heights that range between 25 metres (82 ft) and 50 metres (160 ft). They are vertical gardens that perform a multitude of functions, which include planting, shading and working as environmental engines for the gardens.  The Supertrees are home to enclaves of unique and exotic ferns, vines, orchids and also a vast collection of bromeliads such as Tillandsia, amongst other plants. They are fitted with environmental technologies that mimic the ecological function of trees – photovoltaic cells that harness solar energy which can be used for some of the functions of the Supertrees, such as lighting, just like how trees photosynthesize; and collection of rainwater for use in irrigation and fountain displays, exactly like how trees absorb rainwater for growth. The Supertrees also serve air intake and exhaust functions as part of the conservatories' cooling systems.

A Supertree at night.  The green is live plants.

Jurong Bird Park is now a world-famous bird zoo where there are specimens of magnificent bird life from around the world.  It is currently the world's largest bird park in terms of the number of birds, and second largest both in the number of bird species and land area. There are 5,000 birds of 400 species of which 29 are threatened species.  The African Waterfall Aviary is the second largest walk-in aviary in the world, covering 2 hectares (4.9 acres) and including more than 600 free-flying birds of more than 50 species. The aviary is named after the 30-metre (98 ft) tall Jurong Falls, one of the world's tallest man-made waterfalls. 

Entrance to the Jurong Bird Park.

Live Flamingos.

Amazing colors of birds.

We enjoyed being inside the enclosures with many of the birds and not just looking in.

Elder and Sister Chiu and Sister Sorensen on the bridge in front of Jurong Water Falls mentioned earlier as one of the world's tallest man-made waterfalls.

This bird actually had a hanging nest close by.

Walking in the tree canopy among the birds was amazing.

So many different colors in one bird.

Beautiful.

Sister Sorensen and Sister Chiu feeding birds.