Chinese New Year

Last Friday I went with some PhD students and Philippe with the train to Brisbane to celebrate chinese new year. We had lots of Chinese food and during the dinner we saw some Lion dances with lots of noise/loud music. In a lion dance, the lion is operated by 2 persons who are in the costume. The Lion Dance is performed accompanied by the music of beating of drums, cymbals, and gongs instruments synchronise to the lion dance movements and actions. For me it sounded like lots of noise... 


Here what I found about the lion dances on Wikipedia:


"During the Chinese New Year, lion dancer troupes from the Chinese martial art schools or Chinese guild and associations will visit the houses and shops of the Chinese community to perform the traditional custom of "cai ching" (採青), literally means "plucking the greens", a quest by the 'lion' to pluck the auspicious green normally 'vegetables' like lettuce which in Chinese called 'cái'(菜)that sound like 'cái'(财)(fortune) and auspicious fruit like oranges tied to a "Red Envelope" containing money; either hang highly or just put on a table in front of the premises. The "lion" will dance and approach the "green" and "red evelope" like a curious cat, to "eat the green" and "spit" it out leave it in a nice arrangement, like an auspicious character but keep the "red envelope". The lion dance is believed to bring good luck and fortune to the business and the troupe is rewarded with the "red envelope"."


Some pictures:

Chinatown

The lion dance

We took the train back home and as we passed the veggie shop on the way home we decided to do groceries. Very convenient a 24h veggie shop!


On Saturday, Phil and I did not manage to wake up for the Parkrun at 7am :-( BUT, we did wake up a bit later to go to the surf lesson at 8am! We had a great surf! After a good hour of surfing we had breakfast at the Surfers Paradise Life Saving Club and then we rented a surf board to practice a bit more and to take some pics:

On Sunday afternoon it started raining... and raining and raining. Today, Wednesday it rained a lot here. Some roads were flooded and some water got in our garage, but everything is ok. It's wet season here...I hope the weather gets better soon.


Today we went to the church because the ashes of Barry (our neighbour at Robina) were put in their final resting place. We miss him an our thoughts are with Beth and their daughter Denise. 


Tomorrow it is Australia Day, the National Day of Australia but of the festivities are cancelled because of the rain... Not sure yet what we will do... Maybe work :-) Lots of work to do!!!!