October 1st is China National Day and this year, being the 60th year of the founding of PRC, celebrations are much bigger than usual. Hong Kong, being part of China, of course had lots of celebrations lined up.
The night of october first was spent squeezing with loads of people at Tsim Sha Tsui to catch the fireworks. The fireworks lasted 23 minutes and it is definitely one of the grandest since 2007, when HK celebrated 10 yrs of return to China. We were lucky that we managed to get a spot where we weren't pressed human to human and yet able to get a decent view of the harbour. Well, some parts were blocked by the TST clock tower but it was ok. The most exciting fireworks of the day was the "中国六十" display! The whole display ended with a sky full of fireworks.
camping out at TST bus terminus waiting for fireworks to start
full of people!
The fireworks went "boomz" (Ris Low, 2009)
Next up was Mid Autumn Festival on Oct 3rd. The national day celebration continued and there was this 万人大游巡 held at TST. It was a litle disappointing as there wasn't much display to talk of. Just lots of people walking down the street like Big Walk. There were some bands playing and some uniform groups marching and that's all. The highlight of the parade were the celebrities whom zoomed past us so quickly that we were unable to get a good view, let alone get a good picture. At least I got to see 華仔，Ah Sa, Joey, Gigi and 谢安琪!
華仔 holding the flag. 让世界知道我们都是中国人！
容祖儿Ｊｏｅｙ！
谢安琪. Couldn't see her face.....
Ah Sa! She's waving at me!!!!!
Gigi Leung! Her car went past too fast!
In the evening, Mid Autumn festival celebration started and a group of us, exchange students, headed over to Victoria Park to join in the crowd. Lots of lanterns and display at the park, and not to mention the huge crowd at the grass lawn. It looks like a mass demonstration, like how Bangkok was shut down, people sitting on mats, eating, drinking, chatting.
We had mooncakes, cut using my CUHK card (cause we had no knife), and of course lanterns and candles. We made a mistake of not bring lanterns so we were kind of ripped off by the stalls selling lantern at the park. And we had fun lighting our lanterns, playing with candles. Didn't walk around as the park was too crowded so we ended up playing games while seated. I taught them the R.O.C.K Rock game! haha! The celebration didn't end after we left the park as we lighted our lanterns at CUHK and walked back from the train station to our hostel. It was definitely a cheap thrill.
Lots of decorations!
Lots of people on the grass lawn!
Group picture 1!
Group Pic 2, with our lanterns!
Outside our hostel!Next day, on October 4, I headed out ot Tai Hang to catch the Tai Hang Fire Dragon dance, which is held every year for 3 night during the mid autumn festival. The "dragon" is made of straw and stuffed with lots of incense. It was too crowded and i was too short to get a good view of the dance. So i could only depend on my not so trusty camera to take a look at what's going on. For the first time in my life, i felt so short.....
The signboard telling you that you are in the right place.
This is my view.. lots of heads and a little bit of action....
lighting up the dragon. They stuck joss sticks onto the whole dragon!
The dragon tail.. I couldn't squeeze thru the crowd to get to the dragon head.
While they were parading on the other street, this is what i could see. It's too hard to squeeze through the narrow walkway to the other street, so i had to settle for this view.Ok, so it's the end of the holiday. Back to school! I should skip more lessons :)!!
No comments:
Post a Comment