Chinese New Year Parade

We went to the Chinese New Year Parade in downtown San Francisco this last weekend.  This year is the year of the horse.  I'm not sure what this really means, but a quick search turns up that the horse is "It is energetic, bright, warm-hearted, intelligent and able."  Regardless, the parade is always great, with lots of floats, music, acrobats, and lights.

We all had a good time and saw a lot of interesting floats.  We went to the staging area right at the beginning of the parade again this year.  We really like it there because we can see most of the floats and bands in a short time.  Instead of waiting around for each float and group to pass by, we just walk along Market street and see most of the cool things Stanley is interested in very quickly.

Stanley liked waving to the pretty ladies in the sparkling dresses on some of the floats, but was not a huge fan of the large strands of firecrackers that a few of the groups set off before they began the parade route.  Eventually he got pretty scared of the loud noises and we had to leave, but it was a lot of fun as usual.

Stanley isn't smiling because some firecrackers just went off a bit ago.

This dragon must have had about 100 people holding it up.  Very cool.