Lunar New Year!

Happy Lunar New Year from Australia!

Here, red decorations scatter the Asian neighborhoods with celebrations last for around two to three weeks (~Feb 12 to Feb 22). While celebrations last for quite a while, events typically overlap on the weekends. I assume that, even though the official LNY day was on a Tuesday, festivities were not occurring to allow families to celebrate together. LNY is populated with various night markets, lion dances, and official firework shows. The main Asian neighborhoods that I went to were Haymarket (right outside of UTS) and Burwood (~30 min train ride).

Burwood Chinatown alone was stunning, especially when night falls to give more prominence to the neon signs hanging from the ceiling. If you love taking photos, this is a perfect photo op. While the night market is open throughout the year, with the LNY celebration, it was packed with people, restaurants, and food stalls (though smaller in size than I was expecting). As with my past experiences with LNY festivities, the lion dance is the most distinguishing feature of LNY. The colorful lions and the explosive music parading throughout the area really set the energy of the night.

It's so fascinating to me how the music sounds the same regardless of where you are in the world. The same familiar melodies and rhythm patterns bounce off the shop walls and into the sky. Starting off in a completely new country and without any significant travel experience, it's hard to not feel overwhelmed every single day. The familiarity and energy really helped to push those depressing feelings, even if for just the night. It really shows that make home isn't as far as it actually feels. My culture is here, represented and celebrated.

It's only right that I got food during my time at LNY. While the restaurants in the upper levels looked really good, I chose to get dinner at the night market stalls instead, due to its limited time nature. I got duck rolls and mini soup buns (see pictures below). The duck rolls had a chewy wrapper and duck, but the cucumber made it kind of refreshing. Because I had to wait for so long for the soup buns, the rolls had gone cold already, but I'm not sure how much better it would've made it. On the other hand, the soup buns were piping hot, fresh off of the pan. Unfortunately, every single bun was compromised with its entire bottom ripped off or, at minimum, a large hole. This meant that the soup buns did not have any soup. It also was extremely spiced, mainly with loads of ginger powder. You couldn't really taste anything else other than meat and tons of ginger. While I would recommend going to Burwood Chinatown, I don't know if I recommend those two food stall options. You might have a better experience at the upstairs restaurants instead.