Chinese New Year

Yes, it is super late to say but allow me, "Happy Chinese New Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai!"

I am not Chinese and I didn't celebrate it of course. But I went to see the new year ritual and celebration in Semarang. 

I promised to post something on my blog about my last trip to Semarang and I haven't had time for that. So before it gets later and later, I got the idea to just copy-paste the e-mail I've sent to my friend, Kate, about it. Sorry:(

I went to Semarang by motorcycle. I went there with my friends from photography club. I didn't ride the motorcycle, I was in the backseat. It was the most extreme ride I ever had! It took five hours to get there and you can imagine how exhausting it was to sit for five hours straight. I couldn't feel my ass! LOL. It was raining hard several times so the road was slippery and we had to be careful. By the time we got to Ambarawa city, it was so sunny and dry. People were looking at us as we wore raincoats while it wasn't raining haha  

We arrived in Semarang by noon and we went straight to Universitas Diponegoro. We were having lunch with some members of Universitas Diponegoro photography club. After that, we checked in to our hotel. We were so dirty and smelly haha. After we got ourself cleaned, we were chatting instead of sleeping. We were supposed to sleep because we had to wake up at midnight to go to Klenteng (Chinese temple) Tay Kak Sie to see the new year ceremony/ritual.

I haven't had any sleep by midnight. We went to the nearest temple, it was about 100 meters walk. It was not a nice walk at night because we got to walk through slum area. When we arrived at the temple, it was crowded. It's a small temple. We arrived there when the Chinese were about to begin the ritual. The ritual began at exactly 12 o'clock. It was my first time to see Chinese praying. The ritual ended at 2 a.m. We went back to our hotel and had some good sleep.

Here are some pictures I took in Klenteng Tay Kak Sie when the New Year ritual began at midnight.

We woke up at 6 a.m., took a bath and had breakfast. Then, we went to the biggest Chinese temple in Semarang; Sam Poo Kong. There were some new year celebration performances, but it was so hot and crowded and I couldn't stand it. Instead of watching the performances, my friends and I were strolling around the big temple, avoiding the crowds. We didn't see the barongsai performance

Sam Poo Kong is actually a historical temple. It's the oldest chinese temple in Semarang. It includes five temples with amazing architecture! For more accurate information, you can read more about it here if you are interested  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Poo_Kong

And here are some pics I took at Sam Poo Kong temple

That's a statue of Zeng He (Cheng Ho) he was a Chinese moslem that traveled to Indonesia 

Look how crowded it was!

The temple's architectural style is so amazing. It is a mixed of Javanese and Chinese architectural style

There were the Chinese that offered us free Bakmi and it looks super tempting!

Just the moment I was about to grab a bowl, my friend asked, "Sorry, does it contains pork?" and yes it did. We didn't eat it because pork is haram for moslem :(

But fortunately, they offered another dish! A plate of rice with chicken, tofu and egg. Happy tummy!