Euphoria in experiencing a piece of culture...

The luminous dragon amid the 'clouds'

........nnnice golden Ox.....

Wow, lots and lots of jewels and gold in a golden chest!!!

me* with a float which is not so clearly focused

The gods worshipped during the Chinggay festival

Sun wu kong and some other don't-no-what characters (I think it may be the eight fairies crossing the ocean???)

zhu ba jie- a character from an old legend " the monkey goes west"

nice sail made of lanterns

Dragon boat float

The nice cow on one of the floats

Yesterday, three of us (Pei Hwa, Hui Ying and I) bravely went to the Johor Chingay festival (sort of an old temple worshipping procession), despite strong objections by our Johorian friends as they reason that it was too crowded... Situations like this may attract pick pockets and snatch thieves... We were very curious about this procession which was an annual event... It seems to be the second largest celebration in Asia, after the mass celebration in China (that's what I heard from my Johorian friend, Tzyy Wei)...

After much pondering and hesitation, we called a taxi to go to Danga City Mall near the starting point of the procession... The taxi crawled along the road as there was a bad traffic jam... Many vehicles seemed to be going to the spotlight venue too!

Talking about the crowd, I'll discuss no more of it to allow dear Pei Hwa to blog about it, the next time she online...It's simple crowded!!!

We thought the procession was going to start at 6pm... But then we discovered that it will actually began at 7pm... We waited patiently(at first), then, starting to grumble about back aches for standing to long a time, staring at the tiny black crowds flooding the roads(from above a hilltop staircase)... The procession actually started at 7.30pm...Hmm, Malaysian time as usual...

Three of us, the ulu kampung girls, kept gigi gaga-ing over the thickly makeups that those procession participants wore... Some kind of typical chinese opera make ups and costumes.... They were all dressed up as legendary and mythical heroes that were written down by ancient scholars...

There were nice floats decorated and furnished with a major touch of chinese culture... Dragon dance were shown once every now and then in sequence of the long line of procession... Miniature figures of gods and deities were carried by muscular men as in some unexpected moment the carriage where the deities were placed will rocked violently as it is said that the gods were present in their own figures during the worshipping ritual...

We were too glad for words to describe when we saw Yong Qiang waving madly to catch our attention for far... He had come with Mr Chua a Maths lecturer from our institute... At last, three of us heaved a sigh of relief as there is an adult whom we can rely on for the rest of the show... Sweets, candies, and instant beverage packs were given out by those who were participating in the procession... It was fun getting these from Chai Sen Ye (god of wealth) as it symbolises...I feel like a kid again, reaching out my hands to receive little gifts from the others... It was fun...

I'll have to stop here as it is late now... More details will be blogged by Pei Hwa in her blog...

By the way, my legs are now suffering the consequences of a long strut during the event last night....

P/s: to fefey, can't on msn lar... sorry so long didn't find you chat liao...wireless here don't allow access to messenger i think...