Chinese New Year

yesterday we went to London to Chinese New Year celebrations. I never actually been to London Chinatown before, strangely enough. I really liked it - it was crowded yesterday, but friendly. We want to go there on a weekday sometime - it won't be decorated, but at least you would be able to go into the shops with no trouble. There were shops I'd really love to have a better look at.

I don't know significance of some of some things we saw there, except many of them look nice. Timur was enchanted by the decorative tassels with knots and bought himself one. I am sure they mean something, hopefully something good, too, but I don't really know what



Acupuncture and acupressure guy - it was full torso, but I don't want to show it all, lest the image hosting admin decides it's indecent and closes my account. I was relieved to see there were no puncture or pressure points on the bits that are not shown, though, I can tell you that



There were police and organizers around, and occasionally crowd grew really dense - when we arrived there there were two separate dragon dances going around Gerrard street. Again, don't know if that was supposed to mean something, but the dragon seems to be going into the doorways of the restaurants and shops - blessing, maybe? Bringing good luck for the next year? Dunno. But the progress of the beasts was slooow, and so was ours when our paths met.



Spot the bunny cake. I didn't - the top of the outside counter hid most of it from my view. I was photographing other beautiful cakes in the window, though, so I got the ears at least.




Lettuce hanged in the doorframe of many places - again, we only guess that it's for the rabbit (or hare) or the coming year.



That's a lot better position for photography than I have. I didn't climb anywhere. I should have done. Maybe I will some other time