Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Mid-Autumn Festival 2010

It is again that time of the year where adults load up on the ever sweet-tasting, cholesterol laden mooncakes while children were busy parading and showing off their lanterns.

While locals and tourists alike were crowding Clarke Quay with it's display of giant lanterns and numerous makeshift stalls selling mouth-watering delights, I found myself returning to the Mid-Autumn Festival market located along Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho, more popularly known as Si Ma Lu Kwan Yin Temple (四马路观音庙).

Stalls lined both sides of the street selling the inevitable mooncakes, a great variety of lanterns, pomelos and even potted plants. Red lanterns dangling from the trees also added much festivity mood to the street.
The majority of lanterns on sale were battery operated ones which comes in all sorts of popular cartoon figurines. However, I was more drawn to the paper and plastic lanterns, where the latter was the more 'up-market' lantern during my childhood days. More importantly, these lanterns had to be lighted up by means of candles which gives the children the perfect excuse to play with fire for that one day in a year.
Instead of mooncakes, I would rather prefer the simpler and cheaper 'biscuits' which are a sort of festive snacks for the children. Made up of only flour, sugar, egg, oil and water, the dough is moulded into animal shapes like that of a fish or the piglet before it is baked. Despite having no expensive fillings to brag about, these 'biscuits' never fails to bring back fond memories of my carefree childhood days

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