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Published: February 12th 2014
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Saturday 1st February and Sunday 2nd February, 2014. Market and Chinese New Year Festival
On Saturday we went to the local market where M purchased a skirt. Then we walked to Woolworths in Balmain to stock up on almost everything. We got our hands on some reduced lamb chops at $3 for 4 big ones. We spent the rest of the day cleaning the house and doing a bit more laundry. We chilled out watching TV in the evening.
The next day was the Chinese New Year Festival in Sydney. The festivities actually run from 24th January to the 9th February but today is the day of the parade and the fireworks. We had a copy of the festival program. We made our way into the city to Cockle Bay for the advertised Dragon Boat Racing at 11 am. There were no dragon boats to be seen anywhere. When we asked in the tourist office the lady seemed to think that they were last weekend - anyway nothing was going down.
We decided to see if anything was happening on the other side of the Pyrmont Bridge. The Pyrmont Bridge is a swing bridge over Cockle Bay in
Darling Harbour. The first Pyrmont Bridge was opened on 17 March 1858, and was a wooden pile bridge with an iron centre swing span. This bridge was demolished around the time new Pyrmont Bridge was opened in 1902. The foundation stone for the new bridge was laid on 6 December 1899 by the Hon. E. W. O'Sullivan and the bridge was opened for traffic on 28 June 1902 by the Governor of New South Wales. As we were crossing sirens started to wail and an announcement was made to clear the centre of the bridge as it was about to be opened. We watched the bridge open and close again but no boats passed through. We asked one of the men in flourescent jackets and he explained that they open it about 4 times a day at weekends to keep the mechanism in good working order - as it is a "very old bridge". On the other side of the bridge we couldn't find anything going on so decided to go for lunch.
on the way we came across a brightly painted fibre-glass rhino. This is an initiative that we have come across before. In Bristol it was Grommits,
in Exeter it was Gorillas and here Rhinos. These works of art will be auctioned for a good cause (Rhino protection in this case) to raise money for conservation. Apparently a Rhino is killed every 13 hours in the wild for its horn. We found several more of these around Darling Harbour and took lots of photos.
We had lunch at the Sussex Centre at our preferred eatery (Cafe de Relax). The whole place was decked out for the start of the year of the horse. The place was buzzing. Then we headed for Paddy's Market to find some new luggage. We established that we could purchase something suitable but didn't buy anything as we didn't want to lug it around for the rest of the day. While we were there there was a green Chinese dragon being operated by two young men. They were being followed by a load of kids, dressed in red, playing drums and symbols. It was interesting to watch and really clever too, as when the dragon 'stood' up one lad had to leap onto the shoulders of the other. D really enjoyed looking at all the exotic spices. Paddy's market is not just
on one floor so we went to take a look upstairs. Here there was fresh fish, lots of stalls selling CNY decorations and a fabulous supermarket selling all kinds of Asian goodies. M purchased a pair of shoes and some trousers (pants they call them here).
Sydney's New Year Festival is a celebration of the city's cultural diversity, embracing the cultures of China, Korea, Vietnam and other countries that observe the lunar calendar. The festival started as a small community event in Chinatown but now rivals those in Hong Kong and Shanghai with a feast of food, art, performance workshops etc. Tonight was going to be one of the highlights of this festival - the Twilight Parade. This was going to start at Sydney Town Hall and finish at the Chinese Gardens. We went to find a good vantage point along the route. It was packed - 4 deep in places. Some had reserved their spots hours before the parade was due to start. We found a spot just behind a couple of shortish Chinese guys. There were two Chinese youths to our left who let in a couple of girlfriends which enabled M to get to the front.
We had to wait about an hour before it would start.
A small burst of fireworks went off at the Town Hall which signaled the start of the parade. Four guys dressed in jockey's silks with horses on wheels were the first to come past - they even had some helpers dragging starting gates along so that they could pretend to race. Then came the parade proper. The first float was a big inflatable horse. This one was first as it is the Year of the Horse that is being celebrated. After this came the VIPs and then various marching bands, dancers etc. There was a float carrying an inflatable animal for each sign of the Chinese Zodiac - each followed by various groups ranging from the Rotary Club, Chinese Parents Association, Girl Guides - you name it they were there. M's favourite 'float' was a merry-go-round consisting of people on roller skates. Unfortunately D didn't get a snap.
One of the best things was something called the 'Twilight Parade Projections. Along the parade route various buildings were transformed with projections of images onto their facades. There were 3 of these altogether and one was just 5 metres
from where we were standing to watch the parade - except that we needed to be on the other side of the road in order to see it! After the parade had finished we made our way to Cockle Bay for the CNY fireworks. They started before we arrived so we missed the beginning and ended up watching from the steps down to the bay.
We walked back a few bus stops to catch the bus as we knew that the Drewitt Street stop would be packed. We were right - only a fraction of the people waiting at the Drewitt Street stop were able to get on board. We enjoyed the CNY Festival but not enough to do it again.
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