Happy Chinese new year! Part 3(and there's still more after this)

After eating our candies we crossed the street to enter a similar store to the other. Upon entering the store I noticed two identical paper red and gold lanterns hanging side by side, I thought they where beautiful. First I went upstairs with my mom and my brother Keaden. We looked at painted scrolls and stuff. I saw one with a tiger, My zodiac animal is the tiger. Then we went downstairs to see the other stuff. There where other art pieces, jewelry, decorations, clothes and other cool stuff. While looking around at some red woven decorations the lady behind the desk complimented my hair and asked how I did it. I explained that my Friends mom did it and that we bleached it and then put paint-like dye on it and let it sit for a while. I enjoyed talking with her. Then my family Left the store and I reluctantly followed. Then I saw something and ran back into the store to take a picture of the Beijing Olympics stuffed animal toys and when I walked back out of the store I said "happy new year" to the person I talked to earlier about my hair. She seemed busy so she didn't look up when she said "Happy new year" but it still made me feel happy. On the corner of the sidewalk I saw a newspaper stand with a newspaper Saying "Lunar New Year Special Issue" with a big photo consisting of statues much like the one that guard that one Chinese King, but they lit up.
What are these?

It looks like Santa!

Look at this instrument! How do you think it is played?

There are turtles in there.

P.S. I'm working on my valentines and they are all mini collages and I love them all very much. I don't want to give them away! I will post pictures when they are done. I also have a state writing test that I'm working on at school. My story is about an old cat lady who likes lady gaga music.

Bye!

Happy Chinese new year! Part 2

It's year of the rabbit so we saw signs like this.
After photographing the entryway we walked around to look for something to do. While walking around we found a wonderful Chinese store with toys, decorations and candy, but mostly decorations. This place was like a Chinese wonderland or something. I really enjoyed seeing all the stuff and taking pictures.
While I was wondering around I saw some people checking out, and when they left they said "Happy new year"to the person who worked there and I just loved that the rest of the city was already done with new year and where already a month into their new year, but here people have just started their annual new year celebrations.
Before we left the store my Dad bought a box of rice paper candies like the ones I had in class in second grade. Then he said "happy new year" to the store keeper and my family left the small beautiful store. There where six pieces of candy, one for each of my family members and me. There was a sticker inside the box too. It had two cherries on it and my Dad noticed it was scratch and sniff so we all smelled the Cherry sticker and ate our squishy candies wrapped in a thin layer of edible rice paper on the corner of the sidewalk looking around for somewhere else to go. We all wanted the sticker so my Dad said he would give it to the person who was best behaved at the end of our trip.

These reminded me of this Philip Tracy 2005 spring McQueen hat.

I wish I took more pics of these. They are lucky money envelopes that are given to children and other unmarried people on the last day of Chinese new year containing lucky money. I was just so overwhelmed by all the beautiful stuff that I didn't think of taking more photos.

Bye!

Happy Chinese new year! Part 1 of many

I've been wanting to celebrate Chinese new year ever since I learned about it in second grade. That was like five years ago and each year as hard as I tried I couldn't convince my family to do anything but buy a box of rice paper candy or eat Chinese takeout for dinner. Yesterday was Saturday and we weren't doing anything so I asked my dad if he could bring me to the nearby China town. I told him it was Chinese new year, I've been trying to celebrate for five years, all we where doing was staying at home today, we couldn't go there on a school day and we might have something planned for next weekend so we should go today. Then I went to my room and got dresses as Chinese as I could and packed my notebook, camera, and other stuff in my woven bag with flowers painted on it. Then I told my dad he should get ready to go and he told me that we weren't going. I said I'd been wanting to celebrate in some way or another for the last five years but he didn't change his mind. Then I started crying and I walked off to my room thinking I would never, be able to celebrate this wonderful Holiday with my family.

After I stopped crying and emerged from my room thinking I would have a depressing and boring day at home my Dad told me he was going to get a keg of beer in the city, said he would bring me and we could stop by china town. I was still sad from what he said earlier so even though I was grateful it was hard to say thank you so just I hugged him. Then it was decided by my parents that the whole family would go.

We all ate at a restaurant in the city then got the keg. After that we Left for Chinatown. On the way there, there was whining from brothers who would rather spend all day on their virtual wizard game than go to Chinatown, But I was so exited to finally be celebrating Chinese new year that I didn't care.

When we drove through the giant front gates with a lion statue on either side, one holding a lion cub, the other a fancy decorated sphere I noticed that each of the lampposts looked The same as the rest in the city but they where painted red. I believe they where red because it is associated with happiness and joy in china. We found a parking spot and had a bit of trouble getting the parking meter (or whatever that thing is called that takes you money so you can park somewhere) to except our credit card but we finally did. At first when we saw the small old looking town we "thought what are we going to do here?" Because there really only seemed to be Chinese restaurants there and we already ate so we walked over to the gate take photos of the grand Chinese style entrance...

To be continued...

It's late so I can't write much about it but here it is, My hair!

Isn't it beautiful! It makes me think of raspberry and blue raspberry or ripe and non ripe blueberries so It makes me think berry. This morning m y family described my hair and we came up with: iconic, awesome, likable, Halloween, goth, totally tubular, and possibly luxurious. I will post more pictures soon.

Bye