CNY in London

The first CNY that I am not home in 30 years. Kind of mixed feelings, in life you gain something but you lose something at the same time.

Chun Seng and his wife Loo Yin just moved to London from Dublin and invited me, justin and few other Malaysian friends for a CNY eve steamboat dinner at his place. Sort of 'reunion' too for the secondary school mates.

First day of CNY, thank god it's a Sunday or else we'll have to work as there's no public holiday in UK! Went out with some friends to Chinatown for dim-sum brunch while joining the huge celebration, the crowd were really huge that I squeezed through one end of the street to the other end for half and hour to meet them. 80% of the crowd were kwai-lous who came here to join the celebration.

tang-long at Leicester Square

Chinatown packed with people

Lion dance - it was impossible to take the full body of the lion as it was surrounded by the tourist at all time. See there were no chinese in the picture.

Welcoming the lion to 'pick the green'

Happy Gold Pig Year!!

London is a real muti-cultural city indeed.

Wish for a better year

There were stage performance and some street events at Trafagal Square sponsored by London Chinatown Chinese Association.

Crowds at Trafagal Square

kwai-lou da kung-fu

rock climbing for kids - I always blame on the weather for not giving me great sunlight for brighter pictures.

Finally I got some space to shoot for a full body lion.

We waited for half an hour to see the fireworks show at Leicester Square in the evening. High expectation brought us much disappointment indeed with the 'made in China' not-great-at-all fireworks.