These cat statues are decorated according to the festive seasons to add more sparks and celebration mood to the festivals. During this Chinese New Year, they were dressed in something called Du4Dou1 (Chinese bellyband), which is a traditional Chinese undergarment a long time ago. Now, blessed with the creativity of designers, the DuDou has become one of the most popular fashion around the world. People start to wear them for various occasions such as to dinners and parties.

We were so eager to get these cats photographed because they really looked adorable in the DuDou. So, we have made a few attempts. The early attempts were not very successful because it was raining. Then, we tried to go at night thinking that they would look nicer because of the lights and lamps decorations on the street but we were wrong.

As you can see, the statues are facing outwards but the spot lights were shining on their backs and darken the face of the cat. At the end, we decided to go again during the day in order to get a better view of the statues.

And there we were again, trying to get them into the pictures in broad day light this time. However, it wasn’t as easy as it seemed at all due to the fact that these cat statues were situated at a junction where the traffic is quite unpredictable, plus, it is always difficult to get a car park there. Fortunately, there is a traffic light at one of the junctions and we took the opportunity to take their photographs. We took two turns to get satisfied photographs taken.

Soon, the bellybands will be taken away from them and they’ll change back to normal cat statues again till the next festive season arrives.

Well, this time I didn’t shake the camera as what I have done in “Light in the night 1-5“. I use “panning method” or what I call it “Shaking method” in the previous “Light in the Night” series. I had told myself not to do it again until I have found a new idea. I have too many similar photos in orange, because most of the street lights are in orange. Why don’t they install other colours of steet light instead? :p

After we have had a photo session with the big white cat, we continued to take the pictures of Chinese New Year decorations around Jalan Padungan, Kuching.

The traffic system around this area is special, it is the combination of a roundabout and traffic lights. In the middle of the roundaout there are 2 traffic lights to allow vehicles to go to 12 o’clock direction through the center of the roundabout. From the picture above, the light decorations are actually hung on the lamppost beside the road in the middle of the roundabout.

The roundabouts in Kuching are usually big, some of them even has flyovers or traffic lights work together. I will tell you about it next time. Now lets focus on the lights decorations in the middle of the roundabout.

Next we travel 3 miles from Kuching city center to a place call 3rd Miles. You can see there is a big 3 in the roundabout. There are more Chinese New Year decorations there. We stopped our car at a few safe places and start shooting more lights decorations.

The lanterns.

The dragons.

You can see the words - “Nian Nian You Yu” in chinese which means “there are left over every year“. In another word, it means “carry forward the money from last year to the new year“.  Another word again, it means “Your bank account or your wallet is not empty at the end of last year“. The word “Yu” in chinese means “left over” and also means “fish“, therefore fish is a symbol for “Nian Nian You Yu“. In Chinese they are actually two different words but sharing the same pronunciation. If you are Chinese, I am sure you understand, but if you are not, I hope you can understand what I am talking about. :p Can you see that how special is the Chinese language?

The word “Fu” in an upside down position, which means “prosperity“.  When it is in an upside down position, it means “the prosperity has arrived“.

I believe the city council is going to remove the Chinese New Year decorations soon. These decorations are similar to last year’s decorations, hopefully next year there will be more types of new decorations on the streets of Kuching. And I also wish to have more sunny days rather than rainy days, so that I can take more photos outdoor. Yes, from the end of last week, the sun has started to shine its light and give its heat to Kuching. I also hope that North Sarawak can have the sun also instead of the floods and landslides. Have you read the news?

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If you are interested in Night Photography, don’t forget to check out my “Light in the Night 1-5″, and drop me some comments. Below are the links, here you go…

Light in the Night 1
Light in the Night 2
Light in the Night 3
Light in the Night 4
Light in the Night 5
Light in the Night 6 (Do you know where is it?) Hehe…