Diary

Gardens by the Bay Mid-Autumn Festival 2018

September 7, 2018

Lanterns, a golden tree, and moonlight serenading at Gardens by the Bay Mid-Autumn Festival 2018.

Long, long ago, during my primary school days to be exact, a substitute teacher of mine joked about how the Chinese would soon stop celebrating Mid-Autumn festival. Wait a minute, the man wasn’t joking; he was actually dead serious. His rationale was, you know, because the Americans so unceremoniously visited the moon in ’69 and found it to be quite the lifeless rock.

He was dissing Chinese myths, by the way; I realised that years later.

Well, it’s 2018, and hmm, Chinese communities worldwide are still celebrating Mid-Autumn festival. In the case of Singapore, I guess it’s because it’s an opportunity to remember one of our heritages and to do some tourism promotion/sales?

Besides, romantic full moon and lanterns and (hipster) mooncakes leh! Got better marketing combination ‘anot? LOL. Right, right, was just ranting to fill up the text for this post. Here are some pics from Gardens by the Bay Mid-Autumn Festival 2018. The entire attraction was packed last night because of opening celebrations.

Mid-Autumn Festival at Gardens by the Bay, Singapore. — Day shot of one of the star display, “Leaping over the Dragon’s Gate.” According to Garden’s website, this spans 70m.

Mid-Autumn @ Gardens by the Bay 2018 — Another feature display, “The Phoenix and the Peony.” This one is at the Supertree Grove.

Mid-Autumn @ Gardens by the Bay 2018 - Golden Wishing Tree — The Golden Wishing Tree! For a small fee, you could hang a Mid-Autumn wish on this. (Tree was blaring the main theme from Castle in the Sky when I was photographing it)

Gardens by the Bay Mid-Autumn Festival 2018 Supertree Grove — The Phoenix and the Peony illuminated. The close-up version is at the top of this post, of course.

Gardens by the Bay Mid-Autumn Festival 2018 Main Entrance — This year’s “tunnel of lights” at the main entrance. The colours of the lanterns constantly change, by the way.

Gardens by the Bay Illuminations — Another very elaborate lantern display at the Dragonfly Lake.

Gardens by the Bay Mid-Autumn Festival 2018 | Tales of the Moon — This feels very autumn-y and Japanese *hanatorou*, doesn’t it? This was one of the lantern-lit alleys leading to the Supertree Grove during the Garden Rhapsody: Tales of the Moon performance.

Garden Rhapsody: Tales of the Moon replaces the usual evening time light-and-music show during Mid-Autumn @ Gardens by the Bay 2018. Might I highlight the music selection was wonderful. Not only were all the songs moon-related, there was a mix of the East and West too.

For example, there were “Fly Me to the Moon” and “Moon River.” There was also Teresa Teng’s Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin. (The President Ong Teng Cheong song for some of us older Singaporeans)

Apart from Garden Rhapsody: Tales of the Moon, there are also nightly cultural performances, with double sessions on weekends. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get anywhere near the stage for a decent shot. So I don’t have any decent picture of that.