A walk in Bailiuzhou Park on New Year's Day

Although we slept late on New Years' morning, I was determined that we not spend the day indoors, where it was colder than outside, actually. So we got dressed in our new finery and ventured out.

The temple next door proved to be the hot spot of the city. The crowds were thick and the incense smoke even thicker, so after a peek around, we decided to head for the big park downtown, where I had seen them setting up some new year displays of some kind.

I snapped this picture of a man carrying his baby bundled up in a basket..looks cozy doesn't it?


Bailiuzhou Park was filled with "sculptures" of nylon and wire, with lights and featuring all kinds of New years' and Chinese themes..kind of like a Chinese "Lights in Delaware Park", for you western New York readers.

Michael especially liked the greetings from a smiling Deng Xiaoping.


Of course there were balloons for the younger members...

And all the features of a carnival, street food, a bounce house, crafts, and games of chance for Thomas and Michael.

We also took our turn ringing the bell -- I think this is some kind of custom because I saw on TV people all over China doing it on New Years' Eve-- making lots of noise like firecrackers, bells, etc. was associated with warding off evil and bad luck in the old days.

The park was a great place for people watching, as lots of families were out strolling with their kids. I wanted to catch this Muslim woman in head scarf...the whole family was gathered around with their jaws dropped to see Sophia and Helen..

I decided that turnabout was fair play, and since everyone was photographing Sophia, I began taking pictures of their cute kids all dressed up...



Here was one display we could not figure out...who is the rabbit? Probably not the Easter Bunny...?!?!?! (Now I know it is Chang e the moon goddess)

After a long walk we headed home to let the kids shop on our street a little with their hong bao money and eat leftovers from our New Years' Eve feast --we even had enough dough to make some more dumplings..

We finished with some giant oranges, which ended up tasting more like grapefruit. Funny to think that our Chinese New Year in China is over...but the festival continues for more days and we may do some visiting with friends, local sightseeing in Xiamen, and Thomas wants to get to the mall...just like Christmas week in the US...