Chinese New Year

After returning from Bali the rest of the week flew by in the lead up to Chinese New Year. Belinda had decorated our foyer and on Sunday we all wore red to work, as this is deemed to be a lucky colour.

Our reward was to finish at 1.30 on Sunday because this is the traditional evening for family reunion dinners and is always a public holiday. Elizabeth was in town and Robert was flying to Australia later tonight so I met up with them in Tiong Bahru for a late lunch and a bit of a wander before a relatively early night ...for a Sunday. The city was extremely quiet with very few people out and about.
The building with linked platforms is a modern HDB called The Pinnacle@Duxton. It is a public housing project and the 50th storey skybridge is open to both residents and the public. At a cost of $5 it is possible, on a clear day, to take in the spectacular view of the city, which I have done a couple of times.

wall art in Tiong Bahru, interesting architecture.

Apparently the plan is for the red building on the left to be totally covered with greenery!  
After another Monday morning sleep-in I met with Libby and Eric at Farmway for a walk to Waterway Point at Punggol, the recently opened shopping centre which is responsible for greatly increased numbers on the MRT and LRT that I sometimes use to travel to and from work.

After what appeared to be a slow start regarding birds we actually ended up seeing quite a few varieties including a pair of laced woodpeckers, a common flameback, a lesser coucal and a magpie robin.

female laced woodpecker, male with red cap, magpie robin

Elizabeth and Maria had expressed a desire to go ówl spotting' in Pasir Ris Park, so on Tuesday morning we headed over there for the morning. It was great to see large numbers of family groups enjoying the facilities and camping in the park, an uncommon activity in Singapore. 

I found the spot where we had seen the owls previously and were happy to see a couple of photographers in the vicinity. They very obligingly pointed out the 3 owls resting high in the trees. One of them spent 15 minutes showing me his bird photos from various spots around Singapore, inspiring me to do a bit more exploring...sometime!

Maria being a tripod, Spotted Wood Owl

 After the excitement of the owls we wandered through the cottage garden style area where there was an abundance of butterflies.

In the evening it was a bit of a shock to discover so many people in the movie theatre at Orchard. The plan had been to see The Dressmaker but it was sold out and so was the following session, so after a little adjustment we got the last three seats for Spotlight, another movie I had wanted to see. It would seem this is the year of the "expose" style movie and I can understand why this one has been nominated for a large number of Academy Awards. It was quite harrowing for the dedicated journalists who finally made the Catholic Church face up to their failings in Boston...although this was only the tip of the iceberg internationally.  The Cardinal who kept the "misdemeanors" of his priests under wraps ended up in Rome...very timely considering this week saw news that Cardinal Pell would not be returning to Australia to give evidence due to ill health!
After the movie we made our way to Chinatown for dinner and a look at the Year of the Monkey lanterns...a display I felt was not as good as previous years. There were a number of street entertainers including this sword swallower.

Singapore does have some odd advertising campaigns, and I'm guessing this one is to encourage the young to start breeding early! This sign was on the floor of the MRT!
 Occasionally we see signs regarding crime statistics in an area and obviously someone in my neighbourhood did something 'ímmodest' last week!