Finally the auspicious Dragon Chinese Lunar New year has arrived! I'm elated and look forward to the Chinese New Year celebration with my relatives.
Today is a really productive and fulfilling day. After work, I went to Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple at Waterloo street to pray. After praying, I walked to the city area to recycle plastic bottles and had lunch.
I did the final spring cleaning, laundry and final decoration at home. Cleaning the shelves is quite therapeutic, cleaning away the past and dust, and welcoming the new energy. In the evening, I had a sumptuous reunion at home with my family.
The Dragon in Chinese culture is an emblem of power, good fortune and strength and it is usually a popular year to have babies. To all my relatives, friends and faithful kind readers, may you enjoy a prosperous and healthy Chinese New Year!
Wood Dragon at Gardens by the Bay, Flower Dome
Having reunion dinner at home.
I like the fried crispy prawns prepared by my mum.
Prayed at Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple at Waterloo street today
I went to Di Wei Teochew restaurant located at Hyde Park for early reunion dinner last Saturday for the first time. This year, there are two new family members namely my niece and nephew who are about 8 and 4 months old respectively. I spent most of the time taking photos of them while waiting for the food.
I am grateful to my elder brother who generously treated the family. He is an example that you do not need a degree to be successful if you are looking in terms of wealth which is commonly used as a gauge for success. He is really good in business negotiation.
Hmm, as for me, though I don't earn as much as him, but because of my hard work for the past two decades, disciplined saving and simple investment, I am financially comfortable and independent woman. I am not a fan of branded expensive goods thus I can save for early financial freedom. To me financial freedom is more important than impressing strangers. I am not very rich. Please don't scam me. Just financially comfortable as I only buy what is necessary and occasionally indulge in good meal and stationery.
Anyway back to the early reunion dinner, we had traditional Teochew dishes that my elder brother ordered. I liked the pomfret fish, vegetable, yam and pumpkin paste orh nee and noodles.
For the first time in my life, I saw private and business planes that belong to the Super rich at Seletar airport. Quite happy that I went to this Teochew restaurant for the first time to try something new.
This Friday I had Chinese New year 3-course meal at one of my favourite restaurants at the Cedele. I opted for the seafood pasta and yuzu dragon cheese cake and a mini yusheng with plum sauce and a cup of aromatic orange coffee. I would prefer the pasta to be more al dente. I will try other dishes at Cedele on my next visit.
Last year I went to iLight alone. This year I asked my friend to join me to explore Light to Night Singapore 2024 at the Civic district where you can view Singapore National Gallery being projected with interesting light images. For the first time, you can also enjoy street food outside National Gallery. We walked from Raffles City shopping mall near City Hall MRT station to Raffles Place MRT station to explore different light art.
We enjoyed mesmerising live performance by street performer Bryan Wong @Brylights who was dancing gracefully at one with the giant ring and light sticks. We were all so impressed by his awesome performance!
Light to Night Singapore will end on 8 February this year.
Yesterday was a really productive day. After work, I went to admire the dahlias flowers at Gardens by the Bay Flower dome with my cousins. Later we went to Chinatown to see the Chinese Lunar New Year light-up. Based on the Chinese zodiac, this year is 甲龙 or Wood Dragon.
I'm finally back to Chinatown this year. I'm quite happy with the lighting decorations and I look forward to shopping at Chinatown soon to prepare for my favourite festival of the year which is also known as the Spring Festival. I'm looking forward to a brand new start and change this year.
I think this dragon design looks quite impressive at night from the side view.
Chinatown MRT station
Pretty traditional shophouses in Chinatown
We had dinner at Good Luck BBQ for Sichuan cuisine.
I'm very happy with my new book purchase at Orchard Road today by Jet Li LianJie 李连杰, Beyond Life and Death, Jet Li looking for Jet Li. Jet Li is a Chinese-born Singaporean who is successful actor, former 5-time Wushu champion. I hope there is a book signing event in Singapore. Even though this book is in traditional Chinese and has to be read from right to left instead of the usual left to right and Simplified Chinese, I decided to buy as I wanted to read immediately and the bookstore staff are not sure when the Simplified Chinese version will arrive in Singapore. Anyway, i can recognise the traditional Chinese character which has more strokes.
In this book, Jet Li shared his quest for the truth and happiness. Like him, we have affinity with Buddha's teaching (佛缘). We find Buddha's teaching helpful in solving personal problems and clarifying many questions I had. I really enjoy listening and reading the dhamma. Why are some people so talented in certain field? In education, we talk about prior knowledge. Perhaps their consciousness still retain prior knowledge they acquired in their past lives. Our bodies are like hardware like mobile phone and it will break down and our consciousness are like the software or data that retain contents like knowledge and karma of previous hardware. It reminds me of the Heart Sutra verse, no birth no death, just transformation in states.
Shakyamuni Buddha was born a prince with great wealth and power but he realised power and wealth can't end universal suffering of aging, sickness and death. He spent 7 years searching for the truth and end to suffering and he found it-the Noble Eightfold Path ( Right View, Right Resolve, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration) to end suffering and he spent 49 years teaching people using differentiated teaching to people of various abilities from the poor to the royalty. Buddha taught people not to believe him or supposedly by him but to investigate and find out if it relate to your experience. He only taught and shared his discovery on how to end suffering and anyone can also achieve if they practise what he shared.
Jet Li pondered why his billionaire friends are still so upset despite their wealth? No matter how rich a person is, he or she can't escape death. You only own the wealth temporarily. Poor and rich people still have worries and suffering. Poor people worry about 2 to 3 figures and the rich worry about millions or billions of dollars. A rich person still strive to earn more and this 'greed' or insecurity make them even want more which lead to more craving and greed. There is also 无常 or impermanence as there is always change. Day by day, we change with age. Understanding this, I appreciate this moment. I'm currently younger than the next moment.
I totally agree with him. Especially regarding people who are sarcastic.
Interesting insight from the monk. Why didn't I think of that? I need to focus more on practice. Hopefully next year, I can go to meditation retreat in temple. I do hope to visit China Mount Putuo or Taiwan Fo guang shan.
