Decorating for the Year of the Dragon

Ever since our arrival back in Hong Kong, preparations have been ramping up to welcome in the Year of the Dragon. Chinese Lunar New Year is perhaps the most important festival of the year. It is marked by lots of customs and gatherings and, of course, decorations.


To give you a feel for what it is like I will provide a small tour of our neighborhood and the environs. One of our favorites modes of transport in Central is the Travelator. It is a series of escalators carrying pedestrians up the levels so that you can breathe when you arrive. (I am sure I have mentioned that Central is built into the side of a mountain. The street above us is six floors up through the building across the street.) The escalator is also a tourist attraction because it leads to Hollywood Road which is full of antique stores and art galleries as well as Soho (south of Hollywood) which is one of the best culinary locations on earth. The escalator is naturally a great place to welcome in the new year.

Next on our tour is Lan Kwai Fong, the Bourbon Street of Hong Kong.

We took a shopping trip to Causeway Bay and found the streets awash with decorations including some characters waving to the crowds.

The Sogo store entrance was beautiful.

There is even a more permanent display in the center of a large intersection.

Our local IFC Mall had the largest lantern we have seen.

But by far the display at Times Square was the grandest.

The lobby of Ken's office building looks lovely.

And not to be outdone, we decorated our apartment as well. It is traditional to have tangerines and nuts and candy. We even found an apple with Chinese writing on it.

In Guangzhou we bought some firecrackers and dragon banners for the windows.

Our building management provided us with Horoscopes for the year based on your lunar symbol as well as some tangerines, (chocolate) gold coins and a red packet. The tradition of the red packet is to provide money to those who provide service throughout the year and to single people who wish you a happy new year. The amount is small but the wishes are great. We have been having lots of fun with this tradition. We even received a packet from one of our favorite restaurants - and it isn't even the new year yet.

Cherry blossoms are said to bring good fortune for the coming year and so we had to include those in our decor.

But perhaps the most fun is a small raspberry mousse cake wearing a Chinese hat that we found at our favorite bakery.

Let the New Year begin!