Chinese New Year Parade, Sydney 2009

Well for the second year in a row, I went to the new year's parade. Though I have something else in mind for next year. Unlike last year, this time the parade was held at dusk and this time I went with the SPB.

We met at Central Station and then headed to the Edinburgh Castle for a late lunch/early dinner. Even though James had said otherwise, the kitchen was closed when we arrived and we had to wait 45 minutes till it opened.





We then headed down into China Town and picked a spot along the parade route to spend the evening. It was an hour and a half before the parade started.





The parade got off to a slow start. There was some problem that we could not see and a fire truck came trough the crowd and went up george street. A while later the parade started to come down to where we were.



The first part of the parade was local groups. They came with the floats from last year, but now lit up for the night time.








Some people took the higher view of the parade.



And then came the professional groups from China. One woman from Anhui provice spoke with me during the parade. She was very proud to be here and of her troupe. And I think I played the drums with one of the drummers when I was in Harbin a few years back.












Some more photos of the crowd.



And the police.



The end.

Dinner in Penrith

Well I had dinner at Penrith, in what is turning into my 6 monthly visit to the Penrith Flickr group. They are still having dinner by the banks of the Nepean River at the Log Cabin Hotel. Now that it is summer we sat outside and were treated to quite a nice sunset. The food is moderately priced and reasonable for the cost. I was lucky and got in just before about 30 teenage girls turned up to order their meal.