Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco!

Last weekend I got a group of great people together to watch the Chinese New Years Parade here in San Fran!  Although it was freezing cold and raining we had a stalwart group that were willing to make trek downtown, and it was really fun, It was really great to have Henry there, he really explained a lot of the traditions and symbolism of the New Years parade!

Look at these guys! There just too cool!

Shaina and Akio, enjoying the parade!

 

I love his expression! :)

 Okay, so those were the awesome people that came, and here are some of the highlights of the parade! Apparently this float is of a really popular website in China. I don't know, I think it's some gaming website or something.

 I thought these guys in red looked pretty neat, they were waiting to go up to perform in this picture.

 These guys were really neat, the were all on stilts and had some interesting costumes. In the front you have the royalty and then it gets lower, to the middle class and then the peasants in the back. It was interesting.

 Here's another group of people, with a dragon, I think.

I just really liked this heart, it wasn't in the parade, but I thought it was neat.

Here's a group of people, carrying another dragon.

 So the Dragon is symbolic of the Emperor, in China the dragon is the most powerful, as is the Emperor, he is like God, and all the dragons in the parade were chasing a ball, that looked like a lollipop! :) But it is symbolic of wealth or prosperity, which is what the New Year's Parade is all about, wishing wealth and prosperity to everyone!

Look at this float! Simply covered in gold glitter! Shaina, is that enough glitter for you!

So we were absolutely freezing by the end, and actually decided to just walk down to the end of the parade, cause honestly I couldn't feel my feet by the end! I was jumping up and down just to get warmed up! Anyway we passed Brytex, and they had a whole display of antique singer sewing machines, it was so neat, and I had to get some pictures! These are for you mom! I'm gonna have to go back and get some more pics!

Here's another picture of the sewing machines

 Here we were at the end of the parade, and we finally got to see the huge dragon! It was so big, and really beautiful all lit up! They were lighting firecrackers in front of it every few feet, and one actually hit me in the face! It was kinda scary! Anyway, I got some pictures, but they're kinda hard to see.

Here it was right in front of me! It was huge!

Right after it passed

Here's part of the spine of this beast! Apparently it's one of the largest parade dragons in the US!

I have to end this on a cute picture of Shaina and I, I had so much fun and I'm glad my wonderful sister could come up! After the parade we went to find a restaurant, we were going to go to Jollibee's! It's a Filipino fast food place, and I was so excited, I haven't been there since my mission! And I love that place! But it was closed!!! It was such a sad moment...but I quickly got over it and we went to the mall for dinner, it was fun getting to know everyone that came a little better!