Happy Chinese New Year!!

We took the kids to Chinatown in SanFrancisco for the annual Chinese New Year Parade last week. They had a great time, especially Nathan, who had learned ALL about Chinese New Year at school. He went right up to some Chinese men playing Chinese checkers in the main square and said "Happy New Year" in Chinese. The Chinese man of course replied back, "Happy New Year" in ENGLISH! I had to laugh! Nathan was nevertheless thrilled.

Here is what we saw on the way down- hay bales shaped like tractors- Had to add this one for my daddy!


At the entrance of Chinatown...



Everyone thought this was funny, EXCEPT our resident animal activist-Sydney. She about died when she saw the chickens cooked with their heads on and displayed in the window. We didn't eat here!


Mike bought some Chinese New year cake from a street vendor and the kids gathered around to try it! Wasted $5- it was aweful! Not even our dessert loving kids could stomach it!

This restaurant was very busy, but they took our big family. The waitress didn't fake how exhausted and stressed she was. While we were deciding what to order, she just pointed at the menu and said, "Get that- for 5!", then took our menus in such a hurry, we weren't sure what we got. It was good, though! The kids taught Addison how to play drums with chopsticks and we had to put a stop to that after a few bad looks. And after a while working with the chopsticks, we had to finally ask for forks, so we could get to the parade in time!




The parade was crowded, but some nice people let us share their bench and we had a great time talking with them and their kids. The kids made everyone laugh with their loud and crazy cheering for the parade entries. It was 2 and 1/2 hours long. We stayed for an hour, then went walking around Chinatown to buy the kids the souvenirs they wanted. We caught the end of the parade on another street and saw some more Huge dragons and floats!