Weekend Adventures

I love Chinatown. It is like stumbling into an another world; one with signs in broken English and paper lanterns. Last weekend, Yano and I took the subway there for the Chinese New Year celebration (it is the year of the Rabbit, in case anyone was wondering). I had never been to one of these celebrations and had only ever been to the area once before, but it was nighttime and I may have been a little tipsy, so I hardly got the full experience.


We got there by noon and wandered around a bit before the parade started, stopping to get delicious pastries to soak up some of the caffeine sloshing in our stomachs. Carefully making our way through the thick crowd of families with small children and old people, we ate our sticky pastries, a little put off by the Chinese donuts which were moist and eggy in the center.

While watching the parade, I realized how odd the whole ritual is. It is, essentially, groups of people walking or being driven down a street, waving, carrying signs, while being cheered at. Sure, I understand the marching bands and Chinese dragons, they are at least a performance. It the city officials in fancy cars and beauty queens that perplex me. Why are we cheering for these people?

Overall, it was a good day. We didn't get home until almost eight o'clock, with only having spent about $40 on the whole trip. Success! At some point, when I finally generate some sort of income, we can be a little more frivolous with our adventures.  It would have been nice to buy a shirt from the Lebowski Fest booth or a ridiculously adorable hat that looked like a panda, but these are things that I can live without. Adventures, however, are one of the few things that keep me from going completely insane. 

Nothing welcomes the Chinese New Year like...bagpipes?