Happy New Year!!

Well, of a sort, anyway. Among the many divergent methods of keeping track of the time is the Chinese calendar, which marked the new year today, introducing the Year of the Rat. Despite the lack of any strong affinity for those of the rodent persuasion, we went in to watch the Chinese New Year celebrations.

Other than a fairly aggravating encounter with one incredibly rude person, the day went extremely well. We arrived in time to get a great spot for the parade, and got to watch the Chinese dragons and other costume-wearers make their way past Trafalgar Square on their way to Chinatown. After we watched the parade, we did the same, and headed into Chinatown ourselves, where after braving the throngs for a few moments, we popped into a small little restaurant for some Chinese. It was undoubtedly the best Chinese we've had in the past year, although I will admit that we kept the choices pretty tame - I still went with the chicken chow main, and Mich had sweet and sour chicken.

After filling up, we headed back through the chaos of Chinatown - a flurry of red lights, people, and merchants selling mini-dragon heads, fans, and paper light covers, as well as unusual smells and the pops of small firecrackers going off. We made our way to Leicester Square for the hourly fireworks display. Mich and I had previously commented that we didn't expect much, as it was now about 2 o'clock, and fireworks during the day just couldn't be that impressive. We were wrong. The lightshow was still pretty cool during the day, and the cacaphony of pops, bangs, and booms was overwhelming. (For those of you who are interested, somehow Maggie made it through without getting upset at all, which in itself is a minor miracle.) I can only imagine how impressive it must be in the evening. Mich took a couple of pictures, but while they are neat, they don't fully convey the moment. Still - a picture is worth a thousand words, so see below...

That more or less concluded our day out. We went back to Trafalgar Square, then down to Villiers Street, and crossed over to the south bank for some ice cream, bumping into our busker acquaintance, the "Invisible Man". (We don't actually know him, but he and the kids have had more than one photo taken together, and they had another today.) We then made it home in time for bathtime and bed. Happy New Year, everyone!!