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SINGAPORE
Opening Hours
& Festivals
Shopping centres open daily 10am-7.30pm; banks open at least Monday
to Friday 10am-3pm, Saturday 9.30am-1pm; while offices generally
work Monday to Friday 8.30am-5pm and sometimes on Saturday mornings.
In general, Chinese temples open daily from 7am to around 6pm, Hindu
temples from 6am to noon and 5 to 9pm and mosques from 8.30am to
noon and 2.30pm to 4pm.
With so many ethnic groups and religions represented in Singapore,
you'll be unlucky if your trip doesn't coincide with some sort of
festival , either secular or religious. Most of the festivals have
no fixed dates , but change annually according to the lunar calendar;
check with the tourist office. Bear in mind that the major festival
periods may play havoc with even the best-planned travel itineraries.
Over the month of Ramadan (between Jan & April) in particular,
transport networks and hotel capacity are stretched to their limits,
as countless Muslims return to their family homes; during Ramadan,
Muslims fast during the daytime. Many hotels and restaurants shut
for up to a week over Chinese New Year (early springtime). Some
festivals are also public holidays (when everything closes).
Not all religious festivals are celebrated in public, but some are
marked with truly spectacular parades and street performances. In
springtime, during Chinese New Year , Chinese operas and lion and
dragon dances are performed in the streets, and colourful parades
process along Orchard Road. And at Thaipusam , entranced Hindu penitents
pierce their own flesh with elaborate steel arches, and process
from the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple to the Chettiar Hindu Temple.
Similar feats are executed by mediums on the occasion of the Birthday
of the Monkey God (summer), best witnessed at the Monkey God Temple
on Seng Poh Road. Every year, the whole island goes into an eating
frenzy for the month-long Singapore Food Festival (July), with almost
every food outlet staging events, tastings and special menus. The
Festival of the Hungry Ghosts (summer) is a good time to catch a
free performance of a Chinese opera, or wayang, in which characters
act out classic Chinese legends, accompanied by cymbals, gongs and
singing; a few weeks later, the Moon Cake Festival , or Mid-Autumn
Festival, is celebrated with children's lantern parades after dark
in the Chinese Gardens. For the nine nights of Navarathiri (autumn),
Chettiar Temple stages classical Hindu dance and music, and at the
Sri Mariamman Temple, the Hindu firewalking ceremony of Thimithi
(autumn) is marked by devotees running across a pit of hot coals.
Deepavali (Oct/Nov), the Hindu festival celebrating the victory
of Light over Dark, is marked by the lighting of oil lamps outside
homes. |
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