Happy Chinese New Year?.....

So since my mum's a sucker for traditional this and that. The first Sunday after the official Chinese New Year (3rd Feb this year) is "time to go to China town, spend and hour finding for space and waiting an hour to be seated and eat" day.

As usual my mum drags us outta the house and orders us to take her there, we spend an hour looking for parking with the mother at the back spouting "didn't i tell you to wake early so we can get here early for parking?!". Well sunshine i'm sure all those hundreds and thousands are thinking the same thing. Doesn't help that shaftsbury Avenue is actually closed off because the "celebrations" spill onto the streets. I say celebrations with alot of sarcasm because it's not really celebrating anymore, the only thing that's celebratory is just the lion/dragon dances that go around the shops. Although something new this year is that they  created a "wishing tree", whereby you would usually write down a wish on a piece of paper, tie it to an orange or orange looking/satsuma like thing and throw it into the branches of a tree. If it hangs then your wish might be granted or has some possibility of coming true, and they usually say the higher the better. So there's people throwing lile bags of polystyrene balls at the tree. Very cute if i do say so myself.


Sooooo finally getting seated around 2.45 we get down to the main deal, eating. And what do you know, mum's getting all hysterical about missing out on seeing the "stuff" and it seems like you can't get away from it more like. A Lion dance troupe comes round the corner and i get a nice view from the 1st floor window. Honestly speaking the best performance was the one i saw a good few years back, the two guys who was the "lion" end on the other guys shoulders and turned around and the drummers were really loud and it really drew me in. This was.....the usual round the mill thing, arrive, prance around, slooowly grab the greens/money (i thought they were carnivorous ;) ) slowwly shred the greens and then throw em around the place. dance around a bit more then leave to go to the next one. Maybe the more money you pay the more effort they put in?

After all that and a minor accident with a little boy attempting to throw a bean bag and knocking his mum's food out of her hand and onto my mu.not much has really happened.

Oh and ofc the yearly tradition of greeting the "money god" and getting a small red pocket of 10p. My mum says "it's all about sincerity and not the money2 then goes back a couple of more times to be "extra sincere"  ^.^


Some pictures to go with the post.

The "Wishing tree"

The throngs of people just before a lion dance goes down