I know Christmas is long over but I wanna share with you the Orchard Road Christmas Light Up which happens every year in November and December. You see, every November and December, Orchard Road will be showered with lights, Christmas trees and other decorations related to Christmas. In fact, this is the best time to visit Orchard Road. Orchard Road is Singapore's most famous shopping destination. A variety of shops can be found here such as luxury brands, fancy restaurants, shops that you can find in a typical neighbourhood mall and more.
In fact, Orchard Road is also home to Singapore's first H&M retail clothing store. H&M is a popular Swedish fashion store that sells high street clothes at reasonable prices. It's located at Orchard Building opposite Ngee Ann City. Down the road at Knightsbridge Singapore, is home to Singapore's first Abercrombie And Fitch which is a popular American fashion retail store.
If you did visit Orchard Road during the Christmas Light Up, you may have noticed these fashionable and stylish cute elephant sculptures. If you haven't, you have missed it. Anyway, these elephant sculptures are known as Elephant Parade which are created by artists who wanted to raise awareness to save Asian elephants. I think this is a great and creative way to raise awareness. In fact, back in January 2012, all these elephant sculptures have all been rounded up at the Singapore Botanic Gardens to auction them off.
I love these lights. It looks like it's raining lights here at the entrance at one of Orchard Road's latest malls, 313@Somerset. Instead of the usual yellow lighting you see everywhere, 313@Somerset have customised their light colours to blue and purple to match the mall's theme colours which are purple. I think it's a great idea. Let's have a look at the inside of the mall.
It's great that they have also installed purple lights inside the mall just like at the entrance. And as you can see, the mall is fairly big with a great selection of shops and eateries here at 313@Somerset. At Basement 3, there is a food hall selling a variety of snacks and low cost meals complete with tables and chairs. And this mall is also home to one of my favourite stores, HMV. It's conveniently located above Somerset MRT Station on the North South Line.
Just like at 313@Somerset, this mall, Plaza Singapura, also has lights that dangle from the ceiling but they decide to stick to the traditional yellow and white lighting which is nice but typical. This mall is quite tall as it has a total of 7 floors with a movie theatre at the highest level. Nothing special over here though.
This is how the Christmas tree looks like outside Plaza Singapura. Sorry for the blurry picture. It's a very very tall Christmas tree although it looks ordinary and there's nothing really special about it. Still, it's beautiful nonetheless. Plaza Singapura is a nice place to visit and it's conveniently located above Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station which is Singapore's largest MRT Station on the North South Line, North East Line and Circle Line.
Last shopping mall is ION Orchard. This is one of Singapore's largest mall offering a large variety of luxury and branded goods. From the outside, it already looks grand and luxurious because of the huge amount of LED lights that can be found at the back of the mall. Sorry, I have no picture of the front.
Anyway, I think this is one of the best Christmas tree in Orchard Road, if not, the best in the whole of Singapore. Why? Well, it doesn't look like a typical Christmas tree with its bright and shiny yellow lights and it also doubles up as an aerial tower. See that ring at the top of the tree? People are allowed to walk on it and catch panoramic views of Orchard Road. I didn't go up as there were too many people queuing up. It would be great if I were to go up on it although it looks slightly scary and can topple anytime. Luckily, it didn't topple over.
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Even the pillars are wrapped with teeny tiny lights. How cool is that? ION Orchard is conveniently located above Orchard MRT Station on the North South line. There is also an underpass link that links the MRT station with several malls surrounding the Orchard area such as Shaw House and Tang Plaza.
These are the Christmas lights that are found along Orchard Road. It certainly is beautiful and fascinating especially at night. You can even see it sparkle. If you want to have a close up view, you can hop aboard a double decker public bus and take pictures of the lights in a closer view. Or, if you have money to spare, you can hop on the Hippo Open Top Bus Christmas tour. Although it's too late to do that now. (Sorry). But you can do that in November and December 2012.
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There's even a live performance of Christmas songs and Christmas Carols outside Wheelock Place to further lighten up everyone's mood. Too bad I didn't have time to view the whole live performance.
Overall, Orchard Road Christmas Light Up 2011 was great. Lovely lights, Christmas decorations, trees and more. Right now as of February 2012, Orchard Road is in the theme of Valentine's Day. So, do come down and check it out. As for the Christmas Light Up 2012, don't forget to check out in early November 2012. I just hope it'll be better and more grand than last year's light up.
Getting Here
Bus services available: (Too much services to list. Check out SBS Transit and SMRT's website to find out more)
Nearest MRT Stations : NS22 Orchard MRT Station (North South Line), NS23 Somerset MRT Station (North South Line), NS24/NE6/CC1 Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station (North South Line/North East Line/Circle Line).
Website: http://www.orchardroad.org/
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