Monday 11 February 2013

Chinese New Year in Chinatown

Happy Chinese New Year! The year of the snake has arrived...
And to celebrate, here are a few oriental snippets of my day in London.

We arrived just in time to catch the parade. There were a lot of people, music & red - which I adored - seeing as it's my favourite colour...


The snake itself was brilliant. It's so interesting to see how the people under control this humungous puppet. It's like a dance.



The make up some people in the parade wore was divine, let alone all the delicately designed headpieces and kimonos.


As the parade moved along, we followed the crowds down to Trafalgar square. It was packed with stalls, tourists & once again, RED.

There was a brilliant atmosphere despite the freezing wind & rain - hence I just had to add this photo in...


However my favourite aspect of the celebration was the beautiful decoration of the area. Lanterns were hung in all the streets like bunting, filling Soho with colour.



I also received my first fortune cookie. Apparently Friday will be my lucky day - we shall see...

Once my feet were completely frozen & my shoes completely ruined, we decided it was just about time to go indoors, so ventured into the National Portrait Gallery.


This place is wonderful, I was particularly captured by the more modern pieces, aren't they just brilliant?
Home to the Duchess of Cambridge's first portrait & a spectrum of incredible pieces, I definitely recommend going here.


We then left the gallery to meet up with some friends for a gathering, the food was delicious & people were lovely. Next year I recommend making the journey.

12 comments:

  1. the pic of the lanterns is amazing and i want to go to that gallery.. looks awesome. x

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    1. Thank you, it is such a nice gallery, I find portraits so interesting so it was perfectxx

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  2. this is absolutely beautiful! the colors on it are fantastic.

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  3. I love london, and china, so this blogpost is just perfect :)
    I am in london as well currently, so maybe I will check out the portrait gallery as well, the weather is just too bad for walking around in the streets xxx mill

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    1. Thank you! It's definitely worth having a look, everything is so incredible, especially the more modern paintings, I love themxx

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  4. As a kid the dragons and lions in the CNY parades always scared me, and to this day the drums still freak me out a little bit, haha.

    I didn't go to the National Portrait Gallery when I was in London last year, I'll make sure to drop in next time!

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    1. Haha, I don't blame you, it was crazy out there & I hope you do get the chance to pop inxx

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  5. such lovely pictures!
    cute blog! hope you check mine out - would love to follow each other xx
    www.vicariousLA.com

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  6. Is that Stephen Fry in the last picture?

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