Chinese New Year Parade

Yay! Welcome the Year of the Rabbit! Chinese New Year was on Feb 3rd this year but the annual parade was held last Sunday. This was the first time I attended (that I remember). I wasn't planning to go but I saw so many articles about it online that I couldn't resist. Plus I LOVE Lion dances as you can probably tell by all my pictures. The parade started at noon at the Millennium Gate on Pender Street and route is about 1.2 Km long. It wasn't just Chinese participating, there was Vietnemese (their new year also is on the same day), Natives, Irish and all sorts of others! It was very cool. The parade lasted about 2 hours but the poor Lion dancers had to keep on going because ALL the stores hung up lettuces for the Lions to eat and they have to do it for luck! So they didn't finish until about 4pm! My sister met up with me after the parade ended and we went to Tinseltown to "walk the flower street". It was very crowded and there were a lot of shows going on but it couldn't beat the parade! I had to wake up super early to go to church first so I was kinda exhausted by the end of the day. But it was absolutely worth it!