Lantern Festival

 Nimon Hao!
     So Chinese New year is officially over.  For those of you who do not know, Spring Festival (the New Year celebration) actually lasts the first 15 days of the lunar new year ending with the Lantern Festival (and another Armageddon-esk firework bombardment).  So here is my last "Vacation" blog... School starts on Saturday, yup, this week actually has two Mondays and two Tuesdays before my first Wednesday.... gonna be a long week.

This new driver is practicing in his inflatable-dog-go-kart... SWEET!

Did I mention that it's the year of the rabbit...  the oddly drawn rabbit...

Dinner with Amy and Brenda, I'm a lucky dude here

Here are some of the many lanterns around the city.

Wang Cheng Park is one of the main attractions during this celebration.  Many of the displays here are animatronic as well.

Like this fighting Dragon and Tiger, Sweet!

Amelia was kind enough to guide and explain many of the displays to me.

Some of the displays actually represent important places around Luoyang (here is Baima Su)

As I've Talked about before, the Dragon and Phoenix are super important here

 Here they are bobbing their heads to the music.... there was no music...

Floating Bunny Heads...

Run Amelia!!! That glowing goose has spotted you!!!

There's a zoo in this park somewhere, but It wasn't this way...

 

No I've tried to disspell many of the stereotypes of China and Asians.... but having a street performance where you show how good at math you are doesn't help my mission very much...

One of the many performances on Lantern day "Dancing Drummers"

Another crucial demonstration is the Lion dance (commonly mistaken for a dragon dance)

Oh My God! That Lion is eating an old lady!

The People masks are way creepier than the Lions...

What're you lookin' at?

The Lions sure enjoy showing their stuff

It's so crowded here...

Here's the other side of the line

Here are some fo teh performers with Jessica, Zach,and David Bowie (from the Sound+Vision Tour)...

Living Large on that ride...

More "traditional" (yet not quite traditional) lanterns

 

My attempted photographs of fireworks... May be time for a better camera...

Well, as I mentioned, class starts up again soon, so who knows what the new semester might bring.  For those of you interested, I have officially notified the District that I will be returning next year, so now they know exactly where to send my contract and my benefits package.

Zaijian