Chinese New Year's parade

The Chinese New Year was actually on Tuesday almost two weeks ago, 5th of February but there have been little shows here ever since, and even a bit before that too. Mostly the shows happen in Asian restaurants and in front of them when the performance is supposed to bring good luck for the becoming year to the restaurants. The shows have had lion dances, martial art performances, music and of course a pig mascot among them since this year is the pig's year. I have heard the drumming every now and then during the last couple of weeks but this weekend we rarely have a quiet moment even in our house because we can hear that all the time. Yesterday the lion dance group was visiting all the restaurants very near to our building and we surely could hear both the music and especially the noisy firecrackers, even when the windows were closed.

Today was the main event of the Chinese New Year in Paris, the parade. It was supposed to start at 1pm, so I went to the starting point a bit before. The parade seemed to have organized themselves quite well already, groups performing their thing, but it took an hour before the parade actually started moving. I went to see it to the front so that I could see every group from the first to the last when they pass that place. The whole atmosphere, the balloons, the costumes etc. reminded my of Vappu (the first of May in Finland). But so many more people both in the audience and in the parade! After more than an hour of watching the parade slowly moving but not seeing the end of it yet, I decided to return home. Also returning took some time in the crowd even though I was very close to home.

First I was wondering why there are so many Peppa Pig balloons.
Then I realized: "True. It's pig's year and Peppa is a pig, too."

Getting home was difficult due to the crowd but at least I could
enjoy the decorations at the stores still.

This last video is taken afterwards from home when the parade started to be finished. It's cool that I didn't need to go far to see it. Though I also couldn't escape the noise and amounts of people, either.