I had originally planned to take my vacation in December, and even then it was still up in the air. The Mid-Autumn Festival was coming soon, and Pavilion KL had set up a lovely rabbit-themed display on their Centre Court and lined the stairs leading down to the concourse with lots and lots of LED bunnies. The decor would only be up for a few weeks. Well, this is as good a sign as any to bump up my holiday, I need one anyway, even though I hadn’t had time to really plan properly. “Readiness is not a feeling, it’s a decision”, amirite?
I was only able to schedule a visit to the mall on the last day of the decorations, and I made sure to go at 10 am around opening time so I could get nice, clean photos without any crowds. I was banking on that day being literally the last day the decor stays up, and not the day they actually start taking everything down. Up close, the paper bunnies showed some signs of wear and tear, but there they still were, waiting patiently for my arrival.
I had about 200+ photos of the bunnies between my camera and my phone. While I was there, I felt like I went overboard. Now that I’m back, I feel like I didn’t take enough photos. Well, how often do I get see so many glowing bunnies in person? Enjoy the upcoming bajillion near-identical photos of the bunnies from every conceivable angle.
I’ll start with the focal pieces: sweet pink leaping rabbits cleverly constructed in the style of paper lanterns.
I really liked the this photo. I framed it so the crescent of flowers would cascade over this cute pink bunny, and I also realised I could map the Fibonacci spiral quite nicely over it. Even the orange stairs functioned as a continuation of the curve rather than a break in it (if you squint real hard). Here it is with the overlay:
There were three pairs of giant pink rabbits, one pair by the little wishing pond, another pair by the lantern ‘tunnel’, and the third pair at the top of the ‘spanish stairs’.
The photo above was taken with my digital camera, the one below with my phone camera. I like taking pictures with both because the outcomes are like apples and oranges to me, I get two different sets of results.
I know I’m biased because *rabbits*, but the dedication and effort that went into this installation is genuinely impressive.
I didn’t want to risk getting up on the bridge since I weigh more than most men I know. (I’m not body-shaming myself, I’m just acknowledging that being tall for a woman by Asian standards and working out means I carry more weight on my frame.)
There were a number of vendor booths on either side of the display, most of them selling mooncakes and similar confectionaries. Since I showed up on the last day, a lot of things were sold out already. I remember seeing a few mooncake tins with small illustrated bunnies on them.
The wishing pond.
I don’t know who on the creative team had the unhinged idea to commission an 88-glowing-rabbit-centrepiece for the mall and who on the management board signed off on it, but I want to send them flowers for making this crazy bunny lady feel like a kid in a candy store again.
I was tempted to bun-nap one of the smaller bunnies (I’m just kidding……..there’s no way even the smallest one would have fit in my purse)
It’s so hard to choose which photos to upload. They’re all so bunny. I promised a bajillion photos, so a bajillion photos there shall be.
While I’m aware of the significance of the number ‘8’ as an auspicious number in Chinese culture, the fact that they committed to 88 rabbits instead of just 8 of them makes me wonder if it was a nod to these rabbits multiplying like, well, rabbits.
Look at the variation in sizes. There isn’t just big, medium, and small. There’s mini, smol, medium, slightly-larger-than-average, and giant. I feel like the design team had so much fun working on this project.
At the top of the bunny stairs are two large pink bunnies standing on mooncakes. It looks like the bunnies are skiing. Also, that mooncake looks so real, I almost want to take a bread knife and cut a slice to eat.
I returned to the mall again the day after the last day of the display to buy something. The bunnies were still there but the lights had been switched off, so here are some photos of non-glowing bunnies:
Don’t they just look like Bunbun?
What I love about the Mid-Autumn festival is its perennial association with rabbits; it’s not like the Zodiac Year of the Rabbit where I have to wait every 12 years to see rabbit-themed CNY decor. I think pretty much every year there’ll be rabbit decor somewhere during the annual festival.
I wonder what kind of bunny decorations they’ll put up next year at this mall. I’m so happy that I got to be there in person to admire this one, because if I hadn’t randomly pulled up the mall’s IG one day and seen it, I probably would’ve missed out on this one. Every moment of whimsy that I get to participate in counts as a victory to me.
Post-Vacation, Life Lately
About two weeks after my trip, I fell sick yet again for a couple of days. Oh, great. Here we go again, I thought. I chalked it up to sleeping extremely late the last couple of days which probably wreaked havoc on my immune system and opened the floodgates for all kinds of ailments. I had a fever, a headache, and stabbing arm pain all rolled in one. My cough came back too, just when I thought I was finally rid of it. The Dr gave me two days of sick leave. Everything went away but the cough. The Dr suggested it was allergies, though as I had no idea what it was I was allergic to, I had no idea how to improve the situation.
Well, I finally had someone come and service the air-cond in my room, and within 1 or 2 hours, my cough cleared up like rainclouds after a downpour. Incredible. To think that I had been subjecting my poor body and liver to all different kinds of medicines for the last two months when the problem was being a few months behind my a/c servicing schedule. I suppose the last few months of haze had really dirtied up the a/c filter and the handyman had saved the day by giving it a good clean. Just goes to show that sometimes salvation comes from unexpected sources.