Happy Chinese New Year!

As you may know Chinese New Year is a big deal over here in Singapore. It is like our Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years all in one; and it lasts almost the entire month of January and part of February as well. This past weekend we took Daisy on her first Singapore adventure to the Chingay Parade. It was the world's longest parade! (Ok I don't know if that is factual but Daisy and I had enough after about 3 hours of it and it still wasn't over! I was falling asleep because it was soo hot out. And as many of you know, I can pretty much fall asleep anywhere. . . even at a crowded, noisy street parade!) Even though it was long it was entertaining and we saw some amazing local dances and performances. It was a great cultural experience.

Before the parade started Jeremy got some snaps of the city view from the bay.

This was a floating dock in the middle of the bay. Daisy wasn't allowed on, so we sat right outside while Jeremy took some pictures.

I think these trees with the flowers are beautiful, and so Asian looking.

Traditional Chinese New Year decorations.

This was one of the first floats. I thought it was awesome. It's a huge lion. All the dancers were also dressed as lions and they did a cool little performance.

Such a cute little family! (Of course Daisy wasn't looking at the camera!)

A dragon float.

This was proabably the most exciting part of the parade. Those guys you see in the bottom right hand corner, would take balls of burning embers out of the can of fire and toss them in the air. Then the other guy would smack it like hitting a baseball and sparks would go flying everywhere. It was sorta like really dangerous homemade fireworks. The sparks would fall all over their bare backs. I'm not sure how they didn't get burned.

Here's a picture of all the sparks flying everywhere. Just beautiful! Something you would never see at a parade in the States.

All in all it was a great night. Especially since Daisy actually got to come. She was a trooper allowing the local children to mal her all night. And she didn't even complain about the hot, sticky, humid weather or the loud banging noises! I'm not sure Crew will be such a good sport once he arrives. ;) We sure can't wait to find out.