Picture This > An Orchard Road Christmas 2006 (24)
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Clark & Orchard
This intersection is the heart of the Singapore Orchard Road shopping area and one of the most cosmopolitan places on earth. Always crowds of people, but this December 23rd was even more than usual with late shoppers and all.
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Clark & Orchard 2
Another shot of the busy intersection on Dec 23rd.
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Clark Street
One last shot at this intersection, this time looking down Clark street.
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A Christmas Garden
The theme this year seemed to be something about a fantasy Christmas garden or something like that, with lots of trees such as this one.
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Seasons Greetings
The stretch of Orchard Road from Scotts road down to Centerpoint is always the most decorated and happening place in Singapore at Christmas
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Tangs
Tangs always has some kind of Christmas message, usually one which advertises itself...
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Tangs again
... and one that advertises another important aspect of Christmas from the Bible
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Hark!
There are lots of musical groups that perform at various places along Orchard road during the Christmas week. This group was one of the local performances
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...the herald Indians played?
This group seemed a few miles from home, but their music was quite nice in reality
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Bethelehem on Orchard
There was quite a stretch of sidewalk that had been transformed into a mock-up of Bethlehem at the time of Jesus' birth
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The bright lights of Bethlehem
Apparently even in those days in Bethlehem everyone wanted to be a star. Anyway, for a modest fee one can get their picture taken along this stretch of Bethlehem on Orchard with any number of stars from the "original cast"! It seems that the money goes to one of several charities, so I guess what originally seemed a commercialization of the message, actually has a good ending.
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a little detail
With the shear magnitude of the decorations down Orchard, it is easy to miss taking a close look at the details
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the bigger picture
But, of course the senses are almost overwhelmed by the magnitude of what is happening all around, the lights, the music, the people...
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the ice cream man
It is somehow comforting to find something as familiar as the ice cream vendor who is as common place in the heartland of Singapore as the tooting of a horn or the tingling of a bell
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A fountain on Orchard
This fountain is here all year round, but I still found it pretty among the other decorations
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Glitter and Glitz
...just wanted to use that as a description for some reason...
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more lights
another reminder of all the lights and decorations
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the best Christmas tree
awarded the "2006 best Christmas tree on Orchard Road" award by international judges Vic & Gwen!
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Looking up
Strings of lights hanging from every tree down Orchard Road
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half way down Orchard
just another crosswalk with hundreds of people
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looking down Orchard
not all the people were on the sidewalks
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looking up Orchard
The fun way to see Orchard is on the top of an open double decker bus. (Don't strain your eyes, I missed getting a photo of one.)
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taxi...
There are over 20,000 taxis in Singapore and I doubt that you would be able to flag one down in this part of town anytime this week. The ones that weren't full were on call.
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store front decor
In earlier years the store fronts were decorated in amazing detail and with lots of energy and imagination. This year we noticed that there has been an almost complete shift away from the amazing displays of years gone by.
