Chinese New Year Parade, 2009

Nope, there is no food in this post--but there are cute kids and lions and more confetti than you can shake a stick at! I finally managed to get myself to the Chinese New Year Parade in Chinatown this year and had a blast. I DID get there almost 2 hours early, thanks to some faulty information on the website (it said it started at noon!) but the upside to that is that I had a prime spot to watch from.


I didn't wait by myself for very long, either--pretty soon, there was a decent crowd, most of whom were entertaining themselves (and each other) by shooting off confetti cannons.


This kiddo made his own lion dance. It was a really beautiful day (45 degrees, that's almost t-shirt and shorts weather!) and there were plenty of people to watch. Still, I was getting kind of antsy when I finally heard drums approaching...


First, the veterans. See how much confetti there is already?


And then, the first of the lions! I was pretty excited at this point...but THEN the father of the adorable kid next to me handed me a hong bao so I could FEED the lions.


Here is said adorable kid, giving the lion a hong bao. They "eat" the packets (which contain small donations); this one then did a little dance for us. Lots of floats went by (one sponsored by Foxwoods, go figure, hah!) but my favorites were definitely the lions and dragons. I recently got a nice email from the company that makes those lions--check out their website. There is some gorgeous stuff there, if you should find yourself in need of a lion or two :).


Then the Shaolin kungfu students came through and did a short performance. Man, they were impressive.


And my favorite person in the parade. He's totally giving me the eye, right?


The dragon--a proper, multi-person dragon! None of this single person tomfoolery!


One more touch of the lion, for luck....


And here comes the niu year, riding in on a bicycle. HAH!! (The full photo set is here.)

Happy Year of the Ox to all!