Chinese New Year 2015

Following tradition the UK celebrates Chinese New Year a few days after, though CNY normally lasts three days. It celebrates the start of the new lunar year, 2015 marks the year of the goat/sheep. As tradition goes me and my friends congregate in China Town on the Sunday to eat dim sum, look at the stalls selling various trinkets and soak in the culture.

This time there was a new crowd control system which made most roads blocked to exit areas and to actually watch stage events and the dragon dances you would have to circle to Wardour street - this made trying to access restaurants hard!

For past CNY I have seen lucky money trees, fortune Gods handing out red envelopes with coins to people. this time there were lovely floats with mascots for people to look at and this time the Labour party were giving out free fortune cookies in exchange for donations...which was different.

The stalls included lots more variety from charms for your phones to plushies and even ram headbands.

Once you made it to the right area you would glide through a sea of people watching the festivities. One stage there were a group of children on stage telling the story of the significance of the colour red being lucky for the Chinese.

The Chinese community came together to bring a great insight into their culture to multicultural London.

Meanwhile in Trafalgar square there were a fireworks display and a variety of dancing on stage with huge screens for the large crowds to watch from afar.

A great end to the festivities was venturing to the secret photo booth in the China Town Mall for some authentic Purikura, being able to keep memories of the day with us ins ticker form!

What is Purikura ?
See more of my photos here.