In Singapore’s Chinatown, lanterns adorn the streets for the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Mooncake or Lantern Festival. It’s a traditional harvest festival celebrated by the Chinese on the 15th day of the eighth Chinese lunar month.

Under the many lanterns all over Chinatown, stalls sell paper lanterns in various shapes as well as Mooncakes. A traditional gift for the Mid-Autumn festival, Mooncakes are square or circle shaped pastry filled cakes with traditional flavours like lotus and egg yolk as well as a variety of other flavours.

It doesn’t feel anything like Autumn here in Singapore, or at least not any kind of autumn that I’m familiar with. The days here are swelteringly hot and humid with the nights being only marginally cooler. Of course, the festival is a timely reminder that I’ll soon be saying farewell, or as they might say here, Zai Jian, to the summer of 2012 as I head north into the autumn and winter months of the northern hemisphere.