SF Chinese New Year Parade

Happy (Belated) Chinese New Year! Even though that was ages ago, it was only this past weekend that San Franciscans celebrated the Lunar New Year with the annual Chinese New Year parade. It just so happened that Mother Nature decided to throw a little party of her own in the form of a storm with heavy rain & wind. Lucky us!

Despite the crazy weather, tons of equally crazy people (myself included) lined the parade route to catch a glimpse of the festivities. The rain & wind even behaved reasonably nicely early on. The highlights included a few floats related to the Olympics (complete with the posse of Beijing mascots...yes those mascots), little elementary school kids doing Chinese cultural things (loosely choreographed dancing and the odd dragon or two) and of course a float with a giant golden rat (year of the Rat represent). Admittedly, it was decided that we would leave when the rain started getting heavy (say, about 40 min into the thing) and the wind began picking up (and started to cut effortlessly through the rows of people who, until then, provided me with some makeshift windbreak). For lack of any photos of the floats, which were difficult to acquire because of my poor positioning behind several individuals, here's a photo of the three of us who braved the weather to indulge in the celebrations: Kim, Dorothy, Me.


Enjoy the photo and brief recount of events. I hope that'll suffice for today. Cheers!