Golden Dragon Festival

Currently I am listening to orchestral versions of theme songs from final fantasy on youtube.  Yes, like a giant nerd.  I also decided to change my blog layout, because the lightness of the background was irritating.  I might change it again soon, but for now, this will do.  By the way, why do the fonts on the themes are all miniscle?  Really, it’s bothersome and annoying.  And they don’t pick fun fonts to use either.  What jerks.

Anyhow, I went on an outing yesterday with my Aunt to Chinatown in LA.  She requested my presence because 1.) she didn’t want to go alone, and 2.) if there was anyone there to mug us, she was relying on me with my knife to take out the offender.  She tells me that she feels safer with me around XD.

So, I get to her place around 12:30 pm, and we headed out a few minutes later.  I gave her the keys to my car, because she said she always had fun driving stick shift.  That was all fine and dandy, until she told me that she had to do a little practicing around the neighborhood to get used to it.  It wasn’t completely nerve-wracking, but she did stall three times on the road.  That made me feel a little unsettled.

On the freeway, I was trying to get the GPS navigator to pinpoint how to get to Chinatown.  I was having a bit of trouble, because I didn’t know what street it was located on, and the GPS didn’t show what city Chinatown was located in when the list first pops up.  I accidentally picked “Chinatown Gate” in San Francisco, and the results showed us that we still had 355.6 miles to go, lol.  After I set it to the appropriate Chinatown, we had some difficulty following the directions because we could not get onto the freeway it directed us to go to.  By the way, did you know that the voice for GPS systems are really soothing?  I suppose they make it that way in order to calm down the driver when it dumps you in the middle of nowhere (that’s happened to me a lot).

There was construction work being done on a majority of the ramps to the 710 freeway, so the traffic jam that was built up on the surface street was monstrous.   After taking several detours, we thought that we would be able to get onto a ramp to finally get onto the 710 freeway, but my aunt saw the “no entrance” sign near it.  She was about to go somewhere else, but I realized that the ramp wasn’t blocked off with cones, so I told her to go for it.  I didn’t care if there was some gaping hole in the middle road – she could have taken my car off-roading for all I cared.  She didn’t need to though; the ramp was fine – they just forgot to remove the sign.

Once we arrived in LA near Chinatown, we realized that a majority of the roads were being blocked off.  We both had no idea what was going on, and it took a phone call to my friend in Berkeley to help us look up on the internet what the heck was going on.  Turns out, we arrived on the day of the Golden Dragon Festival.  Thousands of people were parking along the streets and walking towards the main street of where the parade was going to happen.  We both got really excited because it was our first time experiencing it; she initially wanted to just get a chinese style dress and some fans to show to her class, but we decided to take many pictures of the event.  I took many photos for the sake of her class, and for my parents, who don’t go out often.  Or at all -_-.

Photos under the cut.

After doing some investigation, we decided on the spot to go to the parade and see what the hubbub was all about.

We had no idea where we were going, but we just aimed for the large crowd that was standing on the street.

After a few minutes of watching, my aunt and I decide to eat at the Pho restaurant that was right next to the street.  During our meal, I kept on running out of the store to take a couple of shots of the parade.

After our meal, we stood along the street.  I was really looking forward to seeing the dragons – and I was not disappointed.

This was probably the most impressive dragon of the parade.  The people who held it up were running everywhere, and I happened to get a very cool video of them running towards me .  I was a little startled, so you can actually hear me say, “whoa whoa!” on the video XD.  It was also the largest dragon of the parade.

I’ll admit that I laughed at this one.  I don’t quite understand what this float was for.

You can see “Little Miss Koreatown” and “Little Miss Chinatown” on this float.  Very cute.

Aside from the dragon, the dog costumes were my favorite out of the whole parade.  They had many colors and varieties, and I found it especially endearing when there were little children running around with them on.

I also must have stood at a lucky spot, because almost every time a dog costume walked past, they would stop right in front of me.

James Hong, the actor who did the voice for Mr. Ping, Po’s dad in “Kung Fu Panda”, was also part of the parade.  He got a lot of cheers from the crowd.

The billowing flags and banners were also really impressive to look at.  It was very picturesque.

It was cute to see the children dressed up in full costume.  I was surprised to find that in actuality, there were only about 5 Asian kids in this group.

There were some adults dressed in full traditional costume as well.  I had a feeling that this guy was supposed to be some character from chinese history.

The parade was quite long, actually.  After the last float had gone by, a police car was barking orders to the crowd to get them to stay off the street.  So, they waited until the car had passed, and then crossed the street anyway, lol.  My aunt and I finally made it to a shopping center across the way, and boy, was it packed.

We had to push and shove our way through the crowds, and finally managed to get to some shops.  Of course, the stores were cramped and crowded too.  It wouldn’t feel like Chinatown if it wasn’t.

After making rounds to a couple of stores, we went to the central plaza to watch some acrobats perform some crazy contortionist tricks.  The crowd pressed against the stage like geese waiting to be fed.

I was feeling very sorry for myself by this time, because my feet were sore as heck (I had only worn sandals), and after about an hour and a half of watching, I begged my aunt to let us go do something else.  Because I’m flat footed, I cannot stand for long periods of time; it also causes my lower back to ache miserably.  I nearly felt like punching a baby.

Thankfully, we went to Phoenix Bakery, which was nearby, and ate some pastries.  I also had the chance to eat the biggest steamed barbecue pork bun I had ever seen in my life.  It was magnificent, and about the size of my face.

All in all, it was a fun trip.  We ended the trip around 6 in the evening and headed home.