A night out in town

Chinese New Year's just round the corner and that means several things:

1. My wife and I and will be giving out ang pows to my yet-to-marry cousins and nephews and nieces.
2. We'll be getting some ourselves (of course not us personally, but through Adelle, which we promise we'll save!)
3. We'll be doing our rounds meeting up with family members over the course of several days.
4. There'll be some shows being performed in town as a run-up to Chinese New Year.
5. There'll be that massive yearly pre-Chinese New Year open-air market which will be absolutely crowded with people.
6. Around now, town will be absolutely crowded with people (...and with that crowded with cars).

I won't lament point 5 although I was stuck in one just this afternoon since I think I've done enough complaining about it already previously. Neither will I talk about the Chinese New Year market in town (btw, just in case you didn't know it's on Saturday Jan. 24 starting as early as 1 pm and it'll last till 3 am the next morning!) since I went there last year and I don't plan to go there this year. Rather, I'm more interested in point 4, the shows.

My wife and I, with Adelle in tow, decided to check out the Chinese New Year variety shows that were being put up in town. It's been going on since last Sunday and tonight was the last night. We're not very keen on going to really crowded places because it can get quite hard to move around, but since we'd never been to the Chinese New Year shows, we thought we'd just go and have a look. We went there quite late, though. We arrived in town at about 8.15 and it was already quite crowded. But by sheer providence, we managed to get a parking very near to the event venue.

The event was well in full-swing by then but we managed to see some good performances from children. Wife was with Adelle while I took the chance to go nearer the stage to get some shots since there were no restrictions. I was particularly impressed with this primary school girl who could really dance and sing, and in tune as well. While her plastered smile didn't really melt any hearts (at least, not mine), her presentation was enjoyable enough.

After a few performances, I rejoined my wife and Adelle and decided to walk around the area since there was a night market there as well. There were hundreds of stalls and quite a number were selling Chinese New Year decorations. But a good number were also selling other things: knives, sunglasses, drinks, foodstuff, bags, shoes, cds, health tonics...it almost seemed like the usual Sunday Gaya Fair, only this time this was at night.

Anyhow, didn't buy anything so went back to the stage area to catch a few more performances before heading home.

I rather enjoyed the whole thing. Think I should go to more of these events in the future.

Below is a shot of one of the performances of the evening. I've got a few more pictures of the event here.