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Published: February 9th 2012
The last day of the Spring Festival is marked by the Lantern Festival (gotta love a country that has a festival within a festival). In Shanghai, the Lantern Festival epicentre is Yu Garden (a wonderful tourist trap that is a must see while in Shanghai), where, thanks to their wonderful sponsor Pepsi, massive lantern sculptures are on display across the garden and surrounding buildings.
A couple of friends and I decided to shell out our ¥80 ($13 - go big or go home), and join the crushing crowds to see the sculptures. I have to say, it was pretty cool. Each sculpture showed a different Chinese story (my friend Mingming identified a few, but my brain was in photo-mode so nothing was retained), they were very intricate and thanks to modern technology had moving parts, lasers, and one dragon even smoked. In contrast with the historical (and built to look historical) buildings, it was quite striking.
I think the best part about the evening was being at a family function in China. The look on the children's faces as they looked at the sculptures was priceless, and their excitement was contagious. There was one little
boy sitting on a turtle/dragon/unknown hybrid sculpture that had such an unabashed look of wonder on his face, I couldn't get over it. Ridiculously cute. It made my night.
So all in all: Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely.
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That is quite something!
Ammazing sights throughout all these entries!