Had quite an interesting few days...

Let's begin with wed afternoon... Met Karen at Bugis, where she treated me to Ma Maison, for my Bdae. Just had a craving for western food, so settled for jap western there.. The food was not bad, and the ambience was nice. Found out quite a lot on her job scope, and updated each other on how we've being.. Time is tight and usually meet her twice a yr like that only. Ha.. Anyway, Thanks gal for the treat.. =)

Beef Burger steak with Cheese ..

Potato Gratin..

On the way home, boarded this train, and it's full of decoration. F1 is nearing, and this is how singtel advertise. Initially I was still thinking whether they were preparing to revamp the train, doing the markings.. Only after careful observation, did I realise it's the lane markings for the F1 track... zomg.. wols...



Just today, Attended a traditional Taoist ritual.. From what I know, it's a "chao du" meaning, making a better life for those that passed away, specifically for my grandparents and uncle. The whole process is a VERY big thing for the whole family... Weeks in advance, preparation work begun, folding of the " yuan bao", choosing the auspicious date, arrangement for all the things..

The day before the actual process, their spirits are being invited over to the place where the rituals are to be conducted.. Keeping guard at the place was required.. On the actual day, the whole ritual took place from 9am till 4.30pm. 6 rds of 45mins of prayers and chanting took place, with intermittent breaks in between. Kneeling/sitting, getting up and down was part of the process...
Honestly, most of the time, you also won't know what the priest are chanting abt. Just follow thru the motion..

This paper house was bought for them, and do you know how much this cost?

This paper house, ( 3m high, 4.5m wide ) cost $1800. That's just the house alone, without other things.

Toaist priest carrying out some rituals..


After the 6rds of rituals, the house and all the paper offerings were being brought to Jalan kayu, ( behind a temple ) for burning. rearranging the things itself took 30mins.. look at all the paper covering the base of the house. It's like 15 black trash bag worth.


Inside the paper house, there's full furniture, tv, beds etc.. basically all necessities. Just a question we had in mind was how many storey is there inside.. ha.

The burning of the offerings was erm.. a bit de fast.. everything was gone in a blast... the intense heat from it could be felt 15m away.. I took this video immediately after some rituals where we had to hold hands, surrounding the thing as a family... Thus missed the part where they threw in the molotoves.

Well, It's definitely an eye opener to see such a tradition still going on. I bet it's something rare that nowadays most ppl don't do much of it le.. plus it's very costly.. The whole process cost $20k or so. definitely not what ppl would do.. can u feel the pain , burning $20 k?

Attended all these, cos it's a family tradition.. while I was there, tried to understand the meaning behind the significance of each thing there. sadly, I didn't get to find out much.. Family memebers just know it's required, but cannot explain.. tried to find the priest to ask, but they don't say much as well.. Oh well..