SF Chinese New Year Parade - 4707, the Year of the Ox

This weekend I went to the Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco. It is the biggest Chinese New Year Parade outside of China. The parade was set to begin at 5:15pm so Shan and I decided to go early and get a good spot to watch from. My friend Andrea met up with us just before the parade was about to begin.

The spot we chose to watch from was in the middle of the parade route. We had a good spot, right behind a street barricade. We made friends with a family setting next to us. I gave their boys 2 flags and then they offered us some fortune cookies.

The parade was LONG! It was scheduled to take around 3 hours, we left after about 3 1/2 and still didn't get to see all of the floats and performers. There were several floats, politicians riding in cars, marching bands, etc. Basically normal parade stuff.

I most enjoyed the dancing lions and huge dragons in the parade. The "lions" were two people dressed in a costume, 1 as the head the other as the rear, dancing around. The costumes were beautiful, so bright and colorful! The lions had mouths that would flap open and shut, controlled by the person in the costume. They would also bat their eyelids in time to the music. Some really good lion dancers would put on a great show. The person dressed as the head would jump up onto the shoulders of the person dressed as the rear and stand tall, dancing and opening and closing the lion mouth. I also enjoyed the dragon costumes of the show. Several people would carry a dragon down the street. They would run from one side of the street to the other, making it look like the dragon was slivering down the road. One great dragon went on for at least one city block and was lit with twinkle lights. Firecrackers were shot off around the dragon and the lion dancers.

After the parade, Shan, Andrea, and I walked around Chinatown and ate. It was a great Saturday!

I took some pictures which I will post later - I still haven't uploaded them to my computer.

Happy 4707! Happy year of the Ox!! Happy New Year!!!