Sydney: How Sydney celebrated 2016 Lunar New Year

By Cubie - May 10, 2016


If I had my timing right and/or I didn't run on a Malaysian time (read: late) this post won't be such a sore eye... haha... it is just over 3 months late. Haha... ok...

Aside from this being the icon of Sydney, the other reason why this photo has a connection to the title is the that blue, yellow and green blotch on the bottom right of the photo. A photo on Sydney Opera House generally won't not have this blotch if shot on a regular day but as this one was during the 2016 Lunar New Year period... this is what it was...

See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil...
This three monkeys were part of the Lunar Lanterns curated by Festival Curator Claudia Chan Shaw featuring the work of some of the contemporary artists. The lanterns were actually 12 glowing zodiac animals found around the area of the harbour, CBD and Chinatown. It was not a walk in the park walking in working shoes and carrying a heavy laptop cutting across Chinatown all the way to the harbour and back but I was pretty determined to find all of them.


Right across from the monkeys was the dragon, separated by water. To be honest, I was a tad disappointed with the dragon as because my over achiever imagination thought it would be a big kick-ass dragon sprawling under the Harbour Bridge but no, it was just a dragon's head.


The next lantern around the harbour area were the rabbits. It was difficult to take of photo without anyone posing like the rabbits even at the hour of 20 minutes to 12 am. Please see photographic evidence below. Lol. I waited for awhile but failed so I decided to just take some with them in it.



Next nearest lantern hunting ground would be Martin Place. There was one at top near Macquarie Street and the other at the bottom off George Street.

The Ox was the "resident" at the junction of Martin Place x Macquarie Street. When I shared this photo with Little P, she was excited to see this mahjong ox but commented that the colours versus the character on the mahjong tiles were not the norm. I have no clue about that as I can't play mahjong to save my life. The only time I came face to face with a mahjong set was at my late grandfather's home in Merbok and all we did was playing matching tiles game with my sister or cousin. Lol.


At the opposite end i.e. Martin Place x George Street side, was where the horses were.



The next place was not far to walk - the Pitt Street Mall. Here were where the rat, rooster and pig were found. It was a giant rat too!


I said it was a giant rat because the rooster nearby was about the same size-ish...



In my humble opinion, the cutest of all the 12 lanterns goes to .....*drum roll*... the piggies.

This is me... sleepy like a pig

Just about a block of so away at the QVB Forecourt stood the tiger.. a cute one, not a scary looking one.


Next batches of lanterns were in the Chinatown area - the dog, goats and snake!



How good does the snake look?!


Side note: May is a waiting month....

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