SINGAPORE SHORT STORIES

Yesterday, my family and I went to Orchard Road to experience Christmas in Singapore. Orchard Road was already very crowded when we were there yesterday. The sights and sounds there reminds Singaporeans that Christmas is coming to town!

Today is Boxing Day and a public holiday. The weather is cool and nice and I took Boxing Day literally as I made use of this opportunity to do some spring cleaning of my house.

I would like to wish all readers a Merry Christmas. Though I do not really celebrate Christmas, I do enjoy the fact that it is Christmas for Christmas really is the public holiday of a year before we usher in a new year. Let us work hard for our resolutions for the coming year. Lets chat on Facebook Lets chat on Twitter Like my Facebook Page Subscribe to my Blog: Email me: singaporeshortstories@gmail.com

On Christmas Eve which was yesterday night, my wife and I decided not to go Orchard Road this year to see the festive lighting. Instead, we went over to Marina Square area. The restaurants at Marina Square were packed to the brim. We went to many restaurants only to see queues after queues waiting outside the restaurant. The price tags of many menus were pricey but Singaporeans seemed not to bat an eyelid on this festive holiday. My wife and I then decided to try out Just Acia, a restaurant at Marina Square. The restaurant was packed, but the Korea cuisine there was great for value and there was free flow of ice-cream and soft drinks! There was no service charge though the usual GST applies. Next after a sumptuous dinner, we headed to Esplanade then walked the whole of the Helix Bridge. The bridge was different from the last time we visited the bridge. The bridge led us directly to The Shoppes at Marina Bay. We were awed by the immensity of the shopping mall as well as the unique...

Tomorrow will be Christmas day. Christmas, to me, now is just another day. It is sad when I used to recall that Christmas were magical.. at the time when I was still a young kid.

Dear Fellow Singaporeans, A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to All of you! How time comes, now we are at the cusp of a new year once again! First of all, many Thanks for taking your time to read this post. I would just want to reiterate that this message is not a New Year message by any politician or well-known persona; this is my very own message to wrap up my experiences and thoughts for year 2010 and share it with all of you, Singaporeans.

These days, it rains and it is getting closer and closer to Christmas. The rain reminds me that Christmas is near and it makes me feel like relaxing now till the end of the year! Read more of the Great Xmas celebrations here !

Though now is mid November, I really have a Christmas mood and I bet you share with me this sentiment too. Why is this so? First of all, the weather. It has been raining quite regularly these days, heralding in the Singapore’s unique “snowing” mood.

This year is the 150th anniversary of the Singapore Botanic Gardens and in conjunction with the anniversary, 150 beautifully decorated Christmas trees light up the Botanic Gardens in celebration of Christmas. My wife and I visited the exhibits on Christmas eve and we saw the 150 small Christmas trees encircling the bandstand of the Gardens. Each Christmas tree was decorated by grassroots organizations, non-profit organizations and other institutions and organization from all corners of Singapore! Botanic Gardens was a special place to visit on the eve of Christmas when thousands of Singaporeans would be flocking to Orchard Road to usher in Christmas. Botanic Gardens on Christmas eve offered a serene peace of calm and quiet far away from the maddening crowds. With this exhibits, it makes for an even appealing place to celebrate Christmas. Visit Singapore Short Stories for more interesting reads NOW!

Christmas trees have become a regular, if not, a necessary fixture, in any major Christmas decorations. We will witness all these brilliantly decorated Christmas trees in shopping malls and public places. Thus can you imagine what would happen if a Christmas decoration is void of Christmas trees? It would most likely look dull and boring to many. However, this Christmas, the Changi Airport Group has produced an innovative Christmas concept, decorating its three passenger terminals with colourful balls of different shapes and sizes. There is not a Christmas tree in sight, yet the festive atmosphere these balls engendered is not lost on visitors; on the contrary, the festive mood is revved up to the best Christmas experiences in the airport, as what my wife and I experienced last night, on Christmas night itself! The biggest Christmas ball in Changi Airport is undoubtedly this one nestled right in Changi Airport Terminal 3 level 2. The ball looks big, red and nice, even with a closer loo...

Hi Everyone! Merry Christmas! My wife and I have just come back from Orchard Road and I must tell you, it is real jammed packed with people! Almost thousands of Singaporeans,Permanent residents and foreigners descended down to Orchard road to usher in Christmas! Human traffic is so slow that even a patient people will be irritated.Anyway, it is so nice to be at home and I returned home right before midnight. Orchard road, with thousands of people, walking around, making fun and others sitting down just to usher in Christmas was simply a bomb to be detonated. Why do I say that? As some of the crowds passed, some strangers will spray those bubble foams to people they do not know. And at other instances, a group of people will start to cheer out loud and another group at the end of the jam will resonate with the equal vigor, making merry and funny gestures wildly and loudly! True enough, there were a number of policemen on standby and stationed at various parts of Orchard road, but I wond...

These are two original horrible and funny Christmas Stories, which I would like to share with you. I leave it to you to decide whether these are true stories or just pure fiction! Horror Story 1: Jim, a teenager was walking in the void deck after a Christmas Party. He had loads of fun with his friends just an hour earlier and was walking home, beaming with joy with the presents he had received from them. He loved Christmas and he valued the message of Christmas, which is the spirit of giving and sharing. Halfway through his walk, he was disturbed by a cat which was wailing loudly. “Poor Cat, it must be lonely”, Jim thought to himself, “How I wish the cat could have someone to accompany and share the festive moods of Christmas!” As he walked further, he came to the sight of an old middle-aged homless man, sleeping soundly on a chair in the void deck. Jim thought to himself yet again, “Poor man, time is probably lost on him. It does not matter to him, whether it is Christmas or not, as h...

The other day, I blogged about what may seem to be the tallest Christmas tree in Singapore: the Christmas tree on top of Vivocity Shopping Centre (if you miss the post, just click on the label "Singapore Christmas" to read it). I would like to clarify that when it comes to the earlier post, I have ascribe that honor on Vivocity's Christmas tree as the Christmas tree is really the tallest when you count from zero metre ground level to the tip of the Christmas tree as the tree is perched on the roof of a shopping centre of several stories height, thus which other Christmas tree could beat Vivocity's Christmas tree when it comes to such a comparison of height? Vivocity's Christmas tree could be seen from hundreds of metres away from the shopping centre too! But however, when we base soley on the height of a Christmas tree (from bottom to top of the tree), two Christmas trees stand out to contend for this position: Ngee Ann City's Christmas tree as well as Orchard...

Singapore's newest shopping mall, 313@Somerset will open on Christmas, 25 Dec 2009! This is certainly a great news to Singaporeans as all of us will have an additional shopping mall to explore on a public holiday! This year, Christmas Day falls on a Friday and hence this is another great thing to celebrate! With many companies having half day off on the eve of Christmas, this translates to a super long weekend, from Thursday noon all the way to Sunday for many Singaporeans! And this super long weekend will repeat in the week after Christmas with the New Year 2010! For Singaporeans who are good in leave adminstration, they may want to contemplate adding to this 'icing of the cake' by taking additional leaves of their own so as to create a mega, ultra long weekend that befit the greatest celebration of year 2009 and the ushering of year 2010! These two months, November and December will pass really fast! Let us make enjoy to the fullest these two lovely months and savor the o...

In Singapore, the closet thing that would ever come resembling snow for Christmas is, without a doubt, rain. And these past few weeks, the local weather has indeed turned a bit cooler, with a sprinkling of rain on some days. Come every Christmas, the roads of every major shopping district will be decked out in a splendid style of lights and decorations. Shopping malls here are also decked out in their finest Christmas glory, with a galore of Christmas trees, Xmas programmes and decorations. Check out photos of these Christmas trees which I have taken recently: a) Wonderland style of Christmas tree in Tampines Mall b) And the Christmas tree below at the top of Vivocity is truly impressive! Perched on the roof of Vivocity shopping mall, one can see this huge Christmas tree from hundreds of metres in the vicinity of the harborfront and the seas. That is why, I believe, the Vivocity Christmas tree is undeniably the best Christmas tree in Singapore every year which you must not afford to mi...

What a beautiful Christmas tree! If you look carefully enough, this Christmas tree is not a tree at all! This Christmas tree is made up pieceing together many star-shaped metallic sheets together so that they form a cone, resembling a Christmas tree. Isn't it creative! With Christmas just coming in one and a half month, I will be again hunting down Christmas trees (only those noteworthy ones) and presenting them on my blog for everyone here to see, irregardless whether you are living in a country far away from Singapore! So where does this Christmas tree reside? The answer: at Raffles City shopping centre! If you want to see the Christmas tree last year at the same shopping centre and other great Christmas trees, be sure to read further here ! President Obama and other world leaders will be coming to Singapore on 8 Nov 09 for the APEC Summit. In view of this, the Christmas Lights up at Orchard Road will commence a week earlier than in other ordinary years. Another year will soon b...

Dear All readers, My Dear and I have just gone to Orchard Road and walked the whole of Orchard Road from 3pm right up to 11 pm from noon till night! We did not really walk the whole of these hours but a significant portion of time was spent walking. We walked all the way from Tanglin Mall to Plaza Singapura. In fact it was not just one direction we went. We walked quite a bit from one place to another and then back to the same place and to the next. The reason is to while away the time slowly as we have the whole afternoon to ourselves. It was quite fun as we practically caught all the sights and sound of Orchard Road and soaked in the festive fun on a wet raining Christmas eve. The rain came at a right time, on a night just before Christmas. It lent a feeling of splendor and rather 'justified' the feeling of Christmas in hot and humid Singapore where it does not snow, rain should make up for snow. Stay tuned for the sights and sound of Orchard Road during Christmas eve! ...

Our weather these days have returned to normalcy.. hot and humid, a far cry from the past few days when the weather was cool and windy. These afternoons have become hot and humid again! Not befitting the Christmas session which is usually or should be marked by days of cool and wet rainy weather. That should be how Christmas is like in Singapore: rainy, sunless and cool, this is at least how Christmas shoud be like here, as Singaporeans are deprived of the four seasions. Singaporeans have missed one of the joys of living on this planet earth: the joy and fun of experiencing the four sessions, of experiencing snow and other seasonal natural changes. While Singaporeans have missed the intrisnic joys of experiencing the four seasons, we are lucky not to have experienced the wrath of nature: earthquakes, volcanoes, typhoons, etc. A recent report put up by the Meteorological Services have also put the probability of Singapore being hit by a tsunamis as zero. But who is to validate this...

Christmas is just less than a week. The shopping malls in Singapore are now having Christmas-themed events to draw in the shopping crowds and more ringing of the coffers. It is very common for each shopping mall to have a theme for the special season. For The Central, a shopping centre by the Singapore River, its theme for Christmas this year is 'A Zirkus Christmas Fanatasy at Central By the River' . A Zirkus is the German word for a Circus and I was in luck to catch a live skating performance by renowned Russian skaters and with my camera by my side, caught some of the live action there! I have also uploaded the video clip of what I have shot of the skating performance: These nights, it is amazing for it is real cool, breezy and not humid. Everytime I go out at night, I will be drenched in perspiration because it is so humid, now it feels like being in another country! Enjoy your Christmas, readers!

Liang Court The Central Suntec City Changi Airport