CNY 2008 

This is officially the first Chinese New Year of my life that I have not celebrated. When I was studying in Newcastle, a bunch of us celebrated CNY with a big dinner with the Chinese Christian Fellowship, then a few of us girls went back to Li Yuan and Tricia's place and played mahjong!!

But they soon got tired telling me which tile represented which, because I can read the numerical characters from 1-4. Anything beyond the number 4, and I was lost. And they decided to write the numbers 1-9 on a piece of paper for me instead. However! There was also another girl who couldn't read Chinese, so both of us had our very own special piece of paper, and it was pretty funny, both of us kept looking at the paper intently as we played mahjong.

So anyway, long story short, CNY in Newcastle was pretty fun, since there was so many of us from the Chinese Christian Fellowship that were there.

But as I mentioned before, there are very few Chinese people who I know in London. So no celebration at all. But Alex, Anna (pronounced Anya) and I decided to go to Chinatown to see what the celebrations are like.

The weather the last few days has been absolutely beautiful as well!





The amount of people in Chinatown was amazing! At one point, nobody could move and everyone was just sticking to one another until people lost their patience and everyone had to push each other to move. And the amount of cameras! It was everywhere!




Anna is from Germany and we get along very very well.




Alex from China. Good gosh! I'm whiter than an ang moh*!! Ooooh... for the sun and beach...



Map of Chinatown's CNY celebration. Meant nothing to me.




But the organisers definitely did try to do a good job with it. "Lost children" - if I was a child who got lost in that crowd, I would be forever traumatised. I nearly panicked a few times when I thought I lost my adults.




Chinese New Year definitely starting alright for the folks in Chinatown. The amount of people spending on Chinese food and CNY decor...




There were loads of 'God of Prosperity' around



Including an ang moh* one




I was also tickled by the Metropolitan Police truck's decoration



Because you had to have skills, speed and agility to be quick enough to dash to prime picture taking spot under the balloon fangs of the Metropolitan Police truck, Anna and I settled for a spot ten feet away.

Happy Chinese New Year folks!



*Hokkien for Western
so writes ee @ 3:00 AM

Happy Chinese New Year, sweetie. I'm glad that you still got to celebrate, somehow.

Posted by Blogger CHARIS | 1:55 PM  

Wow! It looks so fresh, exciting and happy...the celebrations over there...as compared to here! Haha! Feels more happening than back home! Nice pics... :) Happy Chinese New Year to you too! Take care.

Posted by Blogger HuiChuan | 9:19 AM  

Thanks Charis, Hui Chuan! Happy CNY to both of you too! Missing family this time round of course, but despite only getting 2 angpaus this year, the sum exceeds what I normally get in Malaysia :P

Posted by Blogger ee | 6:03 PM  

both of you are farrrr more fortunate than me! i didn't even celebrate :( but glad you had a good time & i noticed u posted a new picture too. another "phase" eh? ;)

Posted by Blogger §nóflèk | 12:25 AM  

yup, still adjusting to the new 'phase'... hope it'll get into full swing soon!

Posted by Blogger ee | 5:53 AM  

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