The Year Of The Ox Is Here!

so it was off to Friendship car park for the Chinese New Year celebrations, the troop getting ready, they had just finished at Care For a little bit earlier,

waiting for the show to begin,

there are 2 dragons, this one for the bigger shows,

and this one for the smaller ones, the crowd waiting in anticipation, also the band at the front,

Diana trying not to get sun burnt,

the show begins with 2 much smaller dragons balancing on tables, it appears that a golden ball is used to entice the dragons to follow it, I am not sure about dragon folk law but in all of the shows that golden ball was used as "bait "

then I guess the equivalent of local Chinese hill tribe people did a couple of songs,

the giant dragon makes it's entrance,

Diana with dragon in the background,

on the far side of the car park a guy climbs up to untie these two poles,

by now a lot guys have climbed up one of the poles, in Diana's words, "very scary"

and then even more scary, this young lad is launched into the air on this bamboo pole,

in his hand you can see the golden ball that he is going to entice the dragon with, it is a long way down!

the dragon makes it's way up the other pole, meanwhile the drums and cymbals have moved up a beat,

at last the dragon has reached the top, the boy on the bamboo moves forwards and backwards towards the dragon, teasing him with the golden ball,

then the dragon breaths smoke and spits fire, well fireworks really!

and then the show was over, the dragon made it's way back to ground level danced around then left the car park, a great show that went on for just over an hour, and very generous of Friendship to give up it's car park and virtually cease trading for all of this time as well as paying for the show and providing free ice cream for the kids (Diana missed that bit!) a great way to start the year of the Ox.