Chingay in Pictures

As we arrived at the Chingay Parade site, we were treated to a beautiful sunset over the Marina Bay:

The crowd's attention was drawn elsewhere, however, as the pre-parade performances began.

The website we were using to find Chinese New Year goings-on listed the Chingay Parade as a "Must See!" and "Asia's grandest street parade". Suffices to say, it did not disappoint.
More pictures and details after the jump. Click "Read more" to see 'em.



There were GIANT floating dragons.

The large heads were suspended from equally large helium balloons, and I the body was also full of helium from the looks of it.

The human operators/dancers hold on to ropes to guide the dragon around.

There were dancers. There were fireworks.

There were dancers wearing fireworks.

There were performers representing their homes all over the world.

The Africa group had some of the more entertaining costumes.  Pictured here: trees, giraffes, and some guy's bald spot. (sorry... we had seats in the back.)

The most unexpected group came right near the start of the parade, after the first dragon, the Harley-Davidsons (yeah, the parade began with a pack of Harleys. Must be a story there), and the stiltwalking fireworks-guys. Out of the smoke of the fireworks, can you guess what emerged next?

they emerge from the smoke...

Yes! That's Darth Vader! ...Who else?

ok, so this one was far out in left field. From what I could tell, there was one jedi, plus Darth Vader, an imperial guard, a few other levels of Republic representatives, and a few dozen storm troopers. I suppose they were there to represent the galaxy far, far away.

This whole time there were announcers, shouting through the PA system (which, unfortunately, had speakers right behind our seats) to "GET EXCITED" and "PARTYYYYYY" and "GIVE ME A C(-H-I-N-G-A-Y WHAT DOES THAT SPELL.)". The volume of this I could have done without, but it didn't dimish my enjoyment of the parade.
There was even a youth group attempting to break the record for largest parade performance in Chingay with over 2,000 dancers.

It was truly spectacular.