Kung Hei Fat Choy!

So I guess Sean's master plan worked. After his last post I had to post something. It must have been a late night for him or something. I have no idea what that was about...
In case you all didn't know this weekend was Chinese New Year! Kung Hei Fat Choy! Since San Francisco is renowned for their amazing China Town and Chinese New Year Parade, we couldn't pass it up. From our door to downtown San Francisco takes us 40 minutes. It was still a pretty chilly night but at least the rain had slowed and it was just spitting for the most part.
Here we are front and center ready for the parade to start. I know, I know, I am such a wimpy Canadian. Here I am in California wearing my big ski jacket and still feeling so cold. What is up with that?!

Yeah! It's starting. Notice how everyone is wearing very beautiful silk kimonos which you really couldn't see because of the rain ponchos.
Probably the first hour of the parade was all elementary schools and Chinese clubs that were all dressed up as rabbits. If the rabbit thing is confusing to you, it's because it is the year of the rabbit. Here were some of my favorite little rabbits of the night.
Oh, and did I mention that this parade was 3 hours long...
It was actually probably a toss between dragons and rabbits being the stars of the parade.
The little feisty dragons were my favorite.
Aww. Notice the little dragon in training at the end? So cute!

After all the dragons and rabbits, these floats definitely caught our attention. Is that a steaming bowl of rice?!

Mmm. Noodles, even better. We must be getting hungry.

By about this time we had been standing there for 2 1/2 hour and I have to admit I was reaching my limit. I have turned into such a wimp! One of my fingers was completely white and the others looked like they were died blue they were so cold. Don't even get me started on my feet! So we decided to start walking down the parade rout. Come to find out, a few blocks down from where we were was Union Square, where the real party was going on. It was packed!

Next time we'll hope for better weather and we'll know to get a good spot early in Union Square.
Finally we reached the end of the parade to see what we had all been waiting for. The HUGE dragon!

It just kept going!

Apparently it was an honor to be one of the over 100 people under this dragon. Ooooo.

After a fun and frigged three hours we hopped back on BART and when home. Of course we didn't forget the takeout Chinese food once we were back in Richmond. There is nothing like take out Chinese in front of the fire to complete a great Chinese New Year. Kung Hei Fat Choy!