Seeking Permission to Perform - Mountain Sea Ying Yang Temple

This post is way overdue . Having problems posting it up partly because I'm not accustomed to these rituals and practices and as such I do not want to make any mistakes nor end up offending any person or deity .

So I guess the best way is for me to post up the pictures by sequence of events first before adding remarks to them where applicable . And when I finish slotting in my remarks , it's gonna come off as pretty idiotic in many instances below , which shows you the depth of understanding I have of the proceedings . Hope you can overlook that but I'm gonna push ahead and post it up anyway because I'm not going to pretend that I fully grasp the event or know which character role is being represented ok ? Bear with me please .

The first picture here is of the altar just outside the Mountain Sea Ying Yang Temple . Basically a Taoist temple , the Chinese opera troupe performers are seeking permission from the resident spirits and deities housed in this temple , in order to get the go ahead , to perform for the King of Hell housed in an adjacent shelter .

Yeah , you cannot just perform as and when you wish ok ?

Permission has to be sought first .

Hungry Ghost Festival at Lim Jetty - a few of my favourite pics

 I'll begin by showing you some dramatic snaps of the traditional performers involved , before I move onto what I recorded ( yes I will post them up despite them being blurry ) in yet another post after this one .

Traditional performances used to be the norm before those nightclub concerts .

Meant to entertain those on a one month prison break from hell , so to speak , 

there are rituals to observe before the  actual performance itself and that's what I'm gonna focus on later . 

All , except the last picture was taken around the Suan Hai Ing Yang Tian or Mountain Sea Ying Yang Temple , that faces the sea . It might be of interest to observe that the said temple is dedicated to the God of Hades , thus has depictions of hell on its wall , so you might want to check it out even if you come off season .

Anyway , the last shot , is one of the 2 musicians for the night , where he was seated in shelter housing the King of Hell . Somehow I felt that I needed to snap him , despite him being very humbly clothed . 

Enjoy ....

An eerie coincidence

Last night , I joined a local Hungry Ghost tour led by a volunteer guide simply because I thought that by doing so , it would finally help rid me of an innate fear of the festival .

By doing so , it meant that I was going to break a couple of taboos associated with the Hungry Ghost month .

First , I would be wandering around darkened streets .

Next , night photography would also be involved seeing how I snap almost everthing .

Third . I wore black .

Fourth .....lies in the eerie coincidence snapped in this picture below .

Starting 2017 on a slimmer note

Despite eating myself to like pork chop kingdom come , winter helped me burn what weeks of exercise could not get rid of .

So this is me . Now . 

At least I think this photograph best represents how I feel about myself as well as view myself . Yes , I'm chucking away my tees and jeans and replacing them with tight fitting dresses , love handles showing and all .

Happy despite it being a rather warped sense of personal achievement under my belt . 

Absolutely no dieting involved .

 Just lots of German schwenk ,sweaty fun and a few days of winter travel , to revert muah back to the old mamachita at the turn of the millenium . 

Have a good 2017 peeps . 

Happy New Year !