Curry and spice and everything nice...

Today is a public holiday in Singapore to celebrate the Hindu holiday of Deepavali.  It is the Festival of Lights so tonight I went to Little India to see the festivities.

Little India is typically pretty busy but tonight it was extremely busy.  The MRT train was completely packed on the ride there and there were loads and loads of people wandering around.  As soon as we got up from the MRT we saw the lights...

Other than the large number of people and the lights on the street there really wasn't anything going on.  I figured there would be candles and different types of lights in the shops and the homes but there really weren't.  I guess this makes sense though...if you think about a holiday like Easter there really is not much going on outside of the home.  I think I expected more because so many of the Asian holidays are so colorful and loud and creative and fun to watch.

There were a lot of people just sort of hanging around.  They were mostly male and they were either just standing around in groups of 4-5 or sitting around.  And by sitting around I mean sitting on the curb, leaning against the outside of storefronts, or sitting on the grass in green spaces.  They were just talking and laughing but most of them were drinking beer...from the can...through straws.  Funny. 

Despite being a bit disappointed that more wasn't going on I did have a great meal.  We ate a great Indian meal at the Banana Leaf.  It is aptly named because when you sit down they put a banana leaf in front of you and instead of using plates you eat directly off of it...

The food was delicious...mmm...you know I love Indian food.

We wandered around a bit more after dinner but only found a couple of kids playing with sparklers.  It was cute.

Happy Deepavali everyone!

A few more pics from around Little India since I haven't posted any in awhile...