We experienced our first Chinese New Year here in Hong Kong. We have always been traveling during this holiday before and not in the country, so we were glad to be here for it this year. It is the most celebrated holiday here and lots goes on during the two weeks of festivities.
It starts at a different time every year since it is based on the moon and not the sun like our calendar. This year it started during the last week of January. And this year is the Year of the Ox. So there are gold cows with long horns everywhere.
Chinese New year has lots of tradition behind it and some of the icons are:
1. the lion dance – a great show of two people in a lion costume doing acrobatics on top of really high pedestals.
2. tiny orange trees – there are tiny mandarin oranges on little bushes everywhere and they are so sweet and cute.
3. fresh flowers – they go overboard on beautiful fresh flowers and put them out everywhere. It is lovely.
4. peach trees – these trees are brought in to every public area and put up before they bloom in hopes that they will bloom right on New Year’s Day. The flowers are pretty and pink.
5. red packets – this is the part that is like Christmas a bit. Everyone gives red little envelopes full of money to kids and single people and workers (guards, secretaries, employees, bus drivers, etc). And red packets are hung as decoration everywhere.
6. fireworks – the fireworks are magnificent and are over the Victoria Harbor on the second night of the holidays. We stayed with some friends whose apartment looks over the harbor so we could view them live and up high!
We enjoyed participating in a lot of these events. It was a very nice holiday.
As far as the baby goes, I am being admitted into the hospital tomorrow so the doctor can try and turn the baby since it is still breech. If it works, I think they will induce this week. If it doesn’t, they will hopefully schedule the C-section for this week.
Jay will post updates on his facebook, and we hope to email something out as soon as possible when the new baby arrives.
