Lantern Festival @ Chinese Gdn

As part of my mother's 54th bd celebration, I suggested dinner followed by a trip to the Chinese Garden to view the mid-autumn lantern exhibition last Saturday. We had not been there for ages and I thought it would be an eye-opening experience for Ying Ying to see so many different lanterns at one place.

The theme was "7 wonders of the world". Although we had to fork out entrance fee of $8/p (discounted fare), it is good in a way - otherwise the whole place would be a lot more crowded man! The display did not disappoint us. There was always something to see around the corner. It was really a haven for photographers! My only regret was not charging my camera batteries before leaving the house. I would have taken a lot more pictures if not for the fact that the batteries kept dying on me. :< Anyway, Ying Ying started to get tired and cranky so we had to breeze through for most of the exhibits.

Actually, this was the first time we went somewhere together with my parents other than dining out. It worked out fine and I thought we should do it more often in the future. It was also refreshing to have someone else (i.e. my mother) to take photos of us instead of me snapping hubby and Ying Ying (or hubby snapping Ying Ying and I) all the time.

Great Wall of China

The highlight of the show - Leaning Tower of Pisa (made completely of porcelain cutlery like plates, bowls, spoons of varied sizes tied together)

Ying Ying and her maternal grandparents

Don't they looked like they were reeally in Paris? Haha...

On the spur of the moment, we even got Ying Ying's Chinese name nicely painted in a banner at one of the booths. At $10 including lamination, we thought it was quite reasonable. Since I sucked at writing Chinese, hubby wrote down the order for the artist. To our embarassment, the Chinese national artist pointed out that the "Ying" was written wrongly!!! Duh. Now that I recall, good friend Helen (whose children both have "Ying" in their names) warned that "Ying" is quite a difficult character to master because it has so many strokes. I had told hubby about that but he just brushed it off then. He had picked "Ying" because it has to do with intelligence. Ah well. Too late. He better be the one to teach Ying Ying how to write her Chinese name in future!! Correctly of course.

Interestingly, a small crowd started to form when the artist started painting Ying Ying's name. Hubby later proclaimed himself to be a "luck-bringer" or "customer-magnet". I sniggered. But I somewhat agreed with him lah. There had been more than a couple of occasions when a small queue started to snake behind him when the particular stall was deserted just moments ago. Strange but true!! haha... :p