Today was the annual Chinese New Year Festival organised by the Auckland Chinese Community Centre at the ASB Showgrounds, one of the events that make me feel so much more Chinese than usual.
The weather wasn't the greatest and was a little gloomy when we got there. Fortunately it held up for most of the day before the rain arrived at the end of the day.
When we got there, we couldn't see anyone in the parking lot where the food stalls usually are, and started to wonder if we showed up on the wrong day! It turned out that they had relocated all the food stalls around the corner! There was also a crowd of people gathered around some Chinese yo-yo performances and dragon dance.
We watched for a while before going inside to check out the stalls. I don't think there were as many as last year but there were still plenty to see and heaps of people!
I actually got to catch up with a few pharmacy friends who I hadn't seen since Completion Ceremony in November last year, like Ai Ping, Nick and Stephanie!
I also caught up with Anzie, a friend I met in the Kiwi Asian Club! She was promoting her performing arts organisation, which also saw her dressed up in a penguin suit!
I did see others from church as well, and also my old high school Chinese teacher Miss Ho, who is now part of the ACCC. It was good catching up with her, and from what she said it sounds like a few of my classmates have continued studying Chinese at uni!
We spent most of the day wandering around checking out the stalls. There were quite a few businesses advertising their products and services, as well as stalls selling food and other things like giant teddy bears. It's funny how everyone would say to me
"Buy one for yourself and one for your girlfriend!"
I'm glad they thought highly enough of me to think I've got one! They probably just wanted to try sell two!
"Buy one for yourself and one for your girlfriend!"
I'm glad they thought highly enough of me to think I've got one! They probably just wanted to try sell two!
There were some people playing Chinese chess...
The Sky City stand had some computers for people to sign up to their e-newsletter and then gave people a chance to pick a ball out of a bag. If they picked the right ball they got a chance to spin the wheel and win a prize. Hamish and I didn't have such luck, but Aonghas did and got to spin the wheel! He won a $10 voucher at first, but fortunately they ran out of those and so he got to spin again and this time won a $20 voucher to a restaurant at Sky City. I don't know whether he'll be using that though, considering each dish is almost $20!
We also had a go at spinning a lucky wheel at the National Bank stand, but my dad, brothers and I only got a fortune cookie each for our troubles. We all got the same message as well!
There was also a stage with performances, and usually when we get bored we'd just sit around and watch the performances, but this year we didn't really bother. Our dad who got bored of wandering around and shopping sat there and watched some of the performances while we continued to wander around though.
Towards the end of the day we decided to check out the food stalls outside just before it started raining. For some reason they decided to shift the food stalls to a much more narrow area, and so it was quite crowded! Therefore we decided to let our mum go wandering around checking out the food stalls as she knows what's good value for money, and she can also fit into small spaces!
Food was quite expensive but we still managed to afford a few dumplings to eat!
By 4pm the guy started warning stall owners to clear up and for the public to leave as the festival wrapped up. We didn't buy as much this year, but it was still good fun!
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