Gong Xi Fac Cai!

Happy Chinese New Year! 2017 is the year of the rooster, and we have seen our share of roosters everywhere. CNY began January 26th and the festivities lasted all the way through February. We had our last CNY event February 26th. It is one of my favorite times of year here. Everywhere gets decked out in CNY decorations like we do for Christmas in the States. It is so fun, colorful, loud, exciting, and so much to do. We barely even scratched the surface of all the CNY activities. Here are the ones that we did. First stop to kick everything off, naturally for us, was a trip to the zoo.  

It's the year of the Golden Rooster. 

The Zoo has the "zoo-diac' trail with signs by all the animals that represent the Chinese zodiac. We had fun seeing a few of them. Sadly could not get to all. 

Babirusa aka boar.




The kids on Chinese New Year Sunday. I made the boys matching vests, and Cosette a skirt with the same material, and her shirt. This was the best picture we could get of the kiddos. Church was only one hour that day because of the holiday. 

 Bringin in the new year at the Flower Dome. We saw the dazzling dahlias exhibit.

Checking out the floating River Hong Bao. 





We got lucky and Daddy was able to meet us down there. 

We had to get a picture with our zodiac animal. 






Rooster donuts to celebrate!

CNY market in Chinatown.





The lion head for the lion dance. I want one so bad!




Our Community Center CNY celebration. Cosette and one of her bffs from school, Cresent, and Rapha.


The Japanese cultural booth demonstrating how Japan celebrates the New Year. It was really fun to take the kids there and show them some of the things that we had growing up. They spent a lot of time there playing the games. 


Pad Thai.



Henry was so excited about his tiger face. He kept looking at himself in the mirror when the lady was done. Then he ran around the community center pretending to be a tiger. 


Our local mall's lion dance. The big kids were in school, so it was just me and Rapha. Gotta start them young. I love the lion dance so much! It's my favorite CNY tradition. 

They started off with the dragon dance. 




He loved the touching the lion. Super soft!

Traditional lo hei celebration at our friend's. Lo Hei is the traditional salad at CNY. It has all sorts of ingredients and sauces all mixed in. Everyone comes together and listens to someone talk about all the ingredients and why it is included in the salda. Then we toss it up!

Cosette right before the tossing of the salad. 

Tossing the lo hei. The higher the toss, the more good luck you will have this year.

 I am so glad we have been able to celebrate CNY in Singapore. It is now my second favorite holiday, after Halloween. I absolutely love the traditions, the color, the lion dance (I'm obsessed).  Happy Chinese New Year! Gong xi fac cai!

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