The Nevin-Graham Family: Lantern Festival

Although we had walked through the Lantern Festival area before going to Thailand, that had been during the day and it had not been ready.

So with only a couple of days left to see it, we decided that Daddy's birthday was the perfect opportunity to visit.

Off we set to Bailouzhou Park and joined the throng. It was not yet dark when we arrived so we decided to chance the street food vendors lining the entryway - a dinner of sorts. We grabbed some scarce chairs and enjoyed a variety of different dumplings, meats on a stick and sausages. There were a few beggars doing the rounds of the table, one a short-statured person and another with a monkey, with only three legs, on a leash. It was an interesting crowd.

Finally Sebastien and Alex were done with entertaining the crowd and we were off to view the park filled with lanterns. The bridge approaches to the park were lined with lanterns.

Remember that it was the year of the Ox so there were a few lanterns with oxen as subjects - each scene was "roped off" with metal pole barricades. The ground used to be grass but had been beaten into dirt by the thousands of feet that had trodden over it.

Fables were also heavily drawn on for scenes.

There seems to be television shows of cartoons that were depicted by lanterns, some of which moved, and there were televisions next to the scenes televising these shows. Alex and Sebastien were mesmerised.

Many tourists come to see the displays, Alex and Sebastien were also closely watched.

Among others there were these giant fruits that Mummy liked.

Mummy also liked the lanterns that lined the paths - they hadn't looked nearly as nice in the daylight.

There were also designs of intricate flower arches over various points of the path.

There were many and varied displays, even some lotus flowers in the lake (those photos didn't turn out). The display had been running for some 10 days or so by now so a few displays were showing the signs of wear and tear. What was amazing for Mummy was the thought of all these being here during the day in an unfenced park and not being visibly vandalised - something she couldn't fathom in Australia (thinking Floriade in Canberra where the entire event is fenced off with security guards night and day).

The photo op for the evening seemed to be children with the Ox - here is the standard pose, making the oxen horns with your fingers.

By the end of our walk through the park, Alex and Sebastien were getting a little bored - this was well past their usual 7pm bedtime - and so Daddy played a little "tag" with them on the lawn in front of the Dragon lantern (the dragon is on top of the stacked gold ingots). In the background you can see some of Xiamen's buildings outlined in LED.

We finished at the beginning, stopping to watch the fountains playing (Sebastien was signing "water" when he saw the fountain - the first time he's indicated that anything other than water in a bottle to drink might be water) and had our photo taken.