The Chinese New Year started on Jan 26, and it was such a sweet thing to experience. The first day of the Lunar New Year was the "World's Happiest Party" celebration... basically a 3-hour parade.
We went with a huge group of exchange students to see the parade in Tsim Sha Tsui, but we only went 2 hours early.. which was not early enough to get a decent spot to see from. I actually had more fun mingling around with all the exchange students since I really couldn't see much of the parade anyway. I got a few good pictures of it though. There were a lot of dancers and dragons and not too many large floats.
They passed out these disco ball globes that say "The World's Happiest Party 2009" on them.
The crowd at the parade definitely made it a little frustrating to be there, but at least now I can say I experienced it!!
The next day of the new year brought on the greatest fireworks presentation I have ever seen in my life. My new group of Norwegian friends and I returned to TST on Jan 27 to see the show. We got to the city pretty early so we ate dinner first at Fridays.
Dinner took a lot longer than expected, and it was cutting it close to the time the fireworks were starting. Suddenly as we were scrambling to figure out the bill, we heard a big boom and everyone in the restaurant rushed out onto the convenient balcony that no one knew was there. So we actually ended up watching the half-hour long show from way up off the side of a skyscraper, avoiding the millions of cramped people down below. The only disadvantage of our spot was that we missed the syncronized music that went along perfectly with the fireworks (I watched someone's video of it later), and some of it was hidden behind buildings. But it was still GREAT! After the show we were fascinated by watching the floods of people streaming all towards the MTR station down below, and watched them for a good 20 minutes. So then we were really glad we avoided that.
The next day of the new year brought on the greatest fireworks presentation I have ever seen in my life. My new group of Norwegian friends and I returned to TST on Jan 27 to see the show. We got to the city pretty early so we ate dinner first at Fridays.
Dinner took a lot longer than expected, and it was cutting it close to the time the fireworks were starting. Suddenly as we were scrambling to figure out the bill, we heard a big boom and everyone in the restaurant rushed out onto the convenient balcony that no one knew was there. So we actually ended up watching the half-hour long show from way up off the side of a skyscraper, avoiding the millions of cramped people down below. The only disadvantage of our spot was that we missed the syncronized music that went along perfectly with the fireworks (I watched someone's video of it later), and some of it was hidden behind buildings. But it was still GREAT! After the show we were fascinated by watching the floods of people streaming all towards the MTR station down below, and watched them for a good 20 minutes. So then we were really glad we avoided that.
Looking at the crowd below!
Another Chinese tradition for the new year is to give out "Red Pockets" with money in them. I got one from the track coach with $20 HKD! Woohoo!
Seung Min is constantly talking about Asian New Year's and what a big deal they are...I can see why now.
ReplyDeleteDo they have the same American menu at TGI Fridays as they do here? What did you eat? potato skins over rice?? hah!
ReplyDeleteYes same menu, but for some reason way more expensive. Everything was like $200 to $300 a dish. I got a milkshake for $38 hah.
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