The Ram's Headbang: Chinese New Year 2015

- February 19, 2015, Thursday.

- This afternoon I met friends Ivy, Charles, Mia, and Von in the new-year chaos that is Binondo Chinatown. It was around 1:30 in the afternoon, and even then all restaurants had waiting lines outside their doors that were longer than the dragons dancing on the streets. It also rained a bit, but the clouds remained gray the rest of the day. I reached Binondo Church shortly after finding my way through the crowd. We were complete around 2pm.

The first dragon I saw for the day.

People in Binondo Church, while waiting for my companions.

Street kid lighting up some candles.

- There was a parade in Ongpin during that time, and it blocked the whole street. My companions had not eaten then, so I thought of going through a detour, and fortunately, Tasty Dumplings was crowded like all the other restaurants. We grabbed seats and had a sumptuous lunch; they were nice enough to treat me.

Trying to replicate my photo from last year, but the sky and the view just weren't cooperating.

Wih friends.

Lunch.

-  Walking around Binondo this year in a costume was not as bad as it was a year ago. After a tiring near year last year, with adventures and some misadventures, I promised myself that I wouldn't wear a full-blown costume this year to prevent some of the things that happened last year (read about it here.) I kept this promise until yesterday, but changed my mind at the last minute earlier today; I guess I just couldn't resist. Well, I probably had a less stressful experience this year since I was out in the streets for a shorter amount of time than I did last year.

She accidentally took a photo of herself.

One of the people who took a photo with me. She seems to be my biggest fan?? LOL.

With my companions.

My solo shot, just as before.

- My companions wanted to buy some lucky charms for the new year, so we went around Chinatown to look for charms that they wanted, while passing by numerous rainbow-colored dragons and lions.

Came across this lion.

And this dragon.

Dragon and lions.

The dragon was trying to catch the spinning ball.

My turn.

Charles the dragon bearer.

- After reaching the Sta. Cruz side of Chinatown, we went to Escolta to get some refreshments before going back to "mainland Chinatown." The sky remained ash-gray, so I did not notice how much time had flown. It was a bit past 6pm, and the store signs and street lights began to light up one by one, giving more life to the street celebrations; the lights also seemed to make up for the sunny day that the clouds robbed from the people. As for us, we went home shortly after the sunset, with blinding fireworks as our last view of Binondo Chinatown for tonight.

Family Mart.