Do you remember reading a book, and was so taken by the story that when you finally got to a point where you thought you could pause long enough to go to sleep it was early morning?  Yeah, time indeed flies when you’re having fun, and I’ve been having a bit of it!  So much in fact, I forgot to put up this month’s desktop!  The image this month is again from Singapore.

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As I said last week I wanted to share more of my tourist pictures from Singapore with you. The pictures in this slideshow are from one of my favorite areas in Singapore, Chinatown. But, as usual, I would like to share some background to the slideshow content.

Chinatown is all about bright colors, great food, friendly shop owners, and souvenirs. It is also a great example of the diversity that makes up this country. On one of the main streets coming into Chinatown you find a Muslim mosque, a Hindu temple, and a Buddhist monastery. I had the opportunity to go into the Buddhist temple close by during a prayer service. Unlike most Muslim or Christian religions, Buddhists don’t have set days of worship, so I’m not exactly sure what the occasion was, or why they were having the prayer service, but it was intriguing to watch. The monks chanted the prayers from prayer books to the beat of a drum. One monk would lead while another would harmonize on certain phrases. Worshipers would chant quietly with them. All faced three huge, brightly lit, gold statues that I assumed were to represent some sort of Buddha or even a god, but I’m not really sure. All around the room in the walls were statues representing various gods. Some statues were tiny, others about two feet tall. And in great Chinese fashion, everything wall was bright red. Quite beautiful.

The government had just finished a major renovation of one of the market areas, and new Buddhist shrine had been placed on one end of the building. So we were able to watch a somewhat rare, shrine dedication. They do it with what is called the Lion Dance.

The Lion Dance is incredible. It consists of a group of musicians playing a drum, and two different types of symbols, three dancers. One dancer is a man with a mask, the other two are in the lion suit. It’s amazing just how catlike they can seem in that suit. The head of the suit allows the dancer to move the mouth and wiggle the ears, among other things. The whole dance, is quite complex and takes at least 10-15 minutes. When they are finished, the shrine is ready for worship. I could not find the story the dance is suppose to represent, so I’m not sure about all the meanings behind it. But it is an awesome thing to watch.

And did I mention food? Singaporeans love food, and you can tell. I still miss the sweet and sour tofu at one of those little food courts in Chinatown. In fact, the owners began to recognize me and would start loading a plate before I even got there! Their last comment was in that great accent, “You going to move to Singapore! Yeah?”

Tempting.

Wow, I’ll bet you thought there would never be anymore coming about Singapore! haha There’s still more I would like to show. It was so much fun to run around with my camera and just be a crazy tourist! And I’ve included a little slide show of what tourist pictures I took when I was downtown Singapore.

But before you check out the little slideshow, I want to let you in a little Singapore legend. Singapore is the English version of Singapura, the original Malay name for the city. The word means Lion City. How it got its name is a fantastic story that rates right up with the best of legends.

You see, a long, long time ago, there was this Indonesian prince named Sang Nila Utama who lived in Sumatra. He decided, one day, that he wanted to build a new city, so he started to sail around the islands close to Sumatra to find a suitable place. But one day as he was hunting on one particular island, he ran up onto a rock that overlooked the ocean, and he had what I guess you could call a vision. He saw an island over the ocean with sandy beaches, called Temasek. He decided to go find this island, and set out with his men. Well, as any good legend would go, they ran into a huge storm as they sailed across the ocean. According to one version of the story that I heard, during the storm a huge sea monster started to attack the ship. The men tried to throw heavy things overboard to keep the ship from sinking but try as they might, it wasn’t enough. The Prince finally decided to try to make peace with the sea and the sea monster, and threw his heavy crown (which according to this version of the story was the crown of Solomon) into the sea. Evidently the sea and the sea monster felt that was fair enough and the storm subsided.

As the men arrived at Temasek and began to search around for food, a huge lion jumped out in front of the Prince. But the Prince just looked straight into the lion’s eyes. And after a second the lion calmed down, and left, as if the two had come to a silent agreement. Thus the Prince named the the city, Singapura, or Lion City.

Now in the little slide show, you’ll see a strange looking fountain, that has a lion’s head, and a fish or sea monster body. It is the Merlion, and represents the combination of sea monster and the lion that Prince Sang Nila Utama met while coming to Temasek.

I hope you enjoyed this little story of legend. I love learning things about places I live or visit, and it’s hard not to share a little!