Mid Autumn Festival decorations 2013

The streets around Chinatown have been decorated with 20,000 lanterns which is a Singapore record for the number of street lanterns on display. The display is on till the October the 4th.
As well as the colourful lanterns the streets of Chinatown have extra stalls set up for a Mid Autumn bazaar with items such as mooncakes, lanterns for the children to carry on the night of September the 19th , and pomelos which are coming into season and are considered an important part of the Mid Autumn festival.
Also an area in Pagoda St is decorated with lanterns painted by primary school children.

A large lantern made up of smaller lanterns

A large lantern made up of smaller lanterns

Lanterns in South Bridge Rd

5 different lantern shapes are used in the display

Lanterns around the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

Lanterns in North Bridge Rd.

 North Bridge Rd.

Lanterns for sale

Another lantern stall

Chinatown bazaar

Close up of the lantern decorated by school children

More of the lanterns decorated by school children

Mooncake madness

Singapore is gripped in mooncake fever. Many shopping centres have large mooncake promotions and tasting tables for the public to try and choose the mooncakes to order for the Mid Autumn Festival.
Mooncakes are a bakery product traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated as a lunar worship and moon gazing festival. Mooncakes are given to friends or to family during the festival.
 Typical mooncakes are round or rectangular pastries, with a traditional filling made from red bean or lotus seed paste and may contain yolks from salted duck eggs which represent the moon.
Today there are also Snowskin mooncakes , which are made from rice flour and are not baked. These Snowskin mooncakes have become very popular in the last few years.
Companies come out with new flavour combinations each year and some of the popular ones this year are:  Caramelised Cashews with Pandan Snow Skin, Mini Blueberry and Cream cheese, Dark Chocolate Sabayon Snowskin mooncakes.
The Mooncakes also come beautifully gift boxed ready to give as gifts.

Some of the decorative packaging

Decorative packaging

Each stall has tasting plates to help you choose

One of the many Mooncake fairs in a shopping centre

Chocolate snowskin mooncakes

Traditional mooncake

Snowskin mooncakes

This mookcake packing came with jade handles

Traditional mooncakes