Gong Xi Fa Cai!

(That's Chinese for Happy New Year.)

I'm on the road again, this time in Singapore, to visit my friend Priscilla and her boyfriend, Keith, and to see more of Chinese New Year than the paper lanterns in D.C.'s meager Chinatown.

Yesterday was a fantastic day. We rode the MRT, Singapore's super-efficient subway, to Chinatown, where we met up with my friend Wes. By bizarre coincidence, Wes and his family, who live in Denver, are in Singapore right now too.

This is no two-block stretch hosting Benetton and Fuddrucker's. No, Singapore does Chinatown right, and yesterday -- NY Eve -- was its heyday. The streets were lined with vendors selling traditional CNY foods, decorations, silk cushion covers and bags, candy in bizarre flavors (cuttlefish, anyone?) and pigs made of every conceivable material, especially jade. (It's the Year of the Golden Pig, which only happens every few decades. The golden year means extra prosperity.) Thousands of Singaporeans thronged the area to do last-minute shopping, and the mood was festive and excited. We sampled Singapore's national dish -- steamed chicken and rice -- at a corner cafe and spent a few h0urs checking out the stalls and buying decorations meant to bring luck. And at lunch, I pondered the surreal concept of having lunch with one friend from Denver and one from D.C. -- and doing it on the other side of the world.

Then we headed for Clarke Quay, a former boat area along the river that's recently been revitalized into hipster central. It's gorgeous. Candy-colored restaurants and bars line the river, and the lucky riverside eateries have booths lining the riverbank and covered with huge domes to shield diners from the sudden showers that spring up. River taxis cruise up and down. A little further back, the inland restaurants -- protected from the rain by sky-high mushroom-like pods that light up at night -- provide chic and comfy outdoor seating and compete to out-hip each other. The hands-down winner in that category is Clinic, a restaurant with a hospital theme: the wall behind the host stand has lockers like a morgue, the outdoor chairs are made from hospital beds and diners eat in golden wheelchairs. We skipped that. Instead, we drank the evening away at Wine Garage, talking and people-watching, then had dinner at the Pump Room.

Just before midnight, we made our way back to Keith and Priscilla's eighth-story (or storey, as they spell it here) apartment, and watched the fireworks out the window.

On tap for today: the zoo, where I'm looking forward to seeing a lion dance.

Happy Lunar New Year!