Lunar New Year: Hong Kong Style

On Chinese New Year's Eve, we went to one of the traditional flower markets in Victoria Park. Cody got off work early for the holiday, so it was late afternoon when we went over there. The market was already hopping! And it seemed to get busier and busier as the night went on. As we walked in, the crowd was shoulder to shoulder, moving at about half a step at a time. This is looking behind us:
This is looking in front of us:
Funny thing, now looking back at the pictures I took, I didn't take any of the flowers or other items for sale. I think we're becoming so accustom to Chinese markets, it seems like more of the same old thing to us and we don't bother with pictures. Except for this one:
With only a few days until the Super Bowl and a big crowd around this booth, my interest was peaked. What kind of concoction did they name "Super Bowl King Traditional Snack?" Here it is:
What?! This isn't what you ate while watching the Super Bowl? Really? You don't even know what it is? Hmmm. Well, that makes two of us. I know the dark items are red beans. The rest must be some sort of flavored glutinous rice. No, we didn't try it, but it did seem quite popular. Sure made me miss the delicious snack food in the Taiwan markets though!


The next evening was the Chinese New Year Celebration Night Parade. We had to arrive a couple hours early to ensure a spot up front. To make the time pass faster, we rounded up a few friends to make it a more fun wait. Oh, and to use our strength in numbers to stake out a spot and ward off pushy Chinese people trying shove their way in! (Shanna, Jon, & Family had already left when we took this).
It worked on both counts: we had a blast throughout the night and we kept a nice big spot to ourselves (not without great effort for the latter though). Shanna had brought a blanket and we used our strollers to make a barrier so the girls had a place to sit and play. You'll notice Cody is not in the below picture.
That is because he is a kind, selfless person. He ran a few blocks away, forcing his way through the crowds, to get some KFC for all of us. Only one person could go because the rest of us had to save spots. I think it took him about an hour. When he got back, he made sure everyone else had enough to eat and didn't even want any himself! That's my husband for you. I love him.

The parade was quite different from the awesome cultural one we saw in Miao Li last year. Hong Kong has branded itself "Asia's World City." In keeping with this theme, they had parade entries from around the world (if you are that interested, you can click here to see what all of them were).
Several of which we, not-so-affectionately, termed the "ladies of the night parade." Specifically, the London School of Samba, where they had a lot shaking and not a lot covered. Otherwise I won't bore you with the local children's dance classes dressed as bunnies, etc. Though to be honest, I enjoyed the purely Chinese entries best (I think that's why I liked the Miao Li parade so much--pure local culture). The first balloon below is a caricature of the God of Wealth, the one behind it is an ancient Chinese coin.
This was Jade's favorite. Even now if we ask her what her favorite part of the parade was, she tells us the big dragon balloon.
Okay, I also really liked the Thailand entry. I love Thailand. Isn't this girl (and the float) beautiful?
They also had the LSU mascot and cheerleaders. I felt compelled to yell "U-S-A, U-S-A" as they passed. They seemed to enjoy that.
I think the girls' favorite float was the Disney one, of course.
They even received hong baos with chocolate coins in them.
The three girls had so much fun at the parade.
The parade had a pause between just about every group (something we parade-expert-Americans think they need to work on), so the girls would run back and play in the blanket in between each one. Oh, the things that entertain!
As crowded as it was going home, it really didn't take too long to actually get there. I was super impressed by how well organized the event was, especially when it came to crowd and foot traffic control.