Hold your Horses (Chinese New Year Parade 2014)

It seems only fitting to end the year of the snake the same way that it began: at the Vancouver Chinese New Year Parade.
Another sunny day is forecast, which means I might not see the sun all day ;-)

Getting up at 7 am on a Sunday is only a good start to the New Year if one is obsessed with seeing the maximum daylight in any day.  But other people got up even earlier and will be on a BC Ferry leaving Langdale at 8:20 and will be waiting for me in Horseshoe Bay at 9 am.

We get to Chinatown before the parade starts and see some horses in the marshaling area.

Soon after finding a good spot, the parade starts with the usual dignified smiler (with a fake beard) and the fire crackers that evict the bad spirits from the pavement.

And yes: It is the Year of the Horse

Of course, there are dragons ...

... and lion dancers.

For a moment I thought I saw Rob Ford, but that is the wrong kind of pipe for him to use.  But the song would fit "Muss I denn, muss I denn zum Staedtele hinaus"

Little horses ...

 ... and a dragon in full charge.

And then there are various fan groups

And what I particularly like about the Chinese New Year Parade:  There are always a lot of children. It is a good way to remember that the coming years and decades are not exclusively our's but their's.

My Year of the Snake is over, and it was a good one.  The idea of wearing red and kicking myself in the butt as often as possible to do things, that I would not have done before, worked very well (see this blog ;-).  But after a whole year it is nice to have the performance pressure diminish.

All the best in your Year of the Horse, Denise ;-)