Icciv's notes in Japan

Chinese New Year - Lantern festival in Nagasaki

A few weeks ago there was a lantern festival held in Nagasaki to celebrate the Chinese New Year. One of the great things about living near a city that has a history of international influence is that festivals are frequent and more varied than others in Japan. I nearly didn't make it to this festival due to the majority of hotels being full. I stayed in Sasebo in the end, but managed to see the majority of events the lantern festival offered. Here are some photos of the festival.

The Saturday morning we gathered to say goodbye to Blaine. Here he his boarding the boat with his daughter.

China Town!

Here are the lanterns at the entrance of Nagasaki's China town.

Above all the streets were rows and rows of lanterns, it was really beautiful.

Emilie bought some traditional food for us to try.

It was filled with red bean paste and very yummy!

Here Melissa shows the delights of sesame balls...also very delicious.

Here was the main temple the parade was centered around. When we arrived here we got to see a procession through the streets.

Here is one of the Lanterns.

Here is a cool dragon lantern, though it does look like a giant baby head was growing on top of it!

Here is a kangaroo! Some of the lanterns do seem a tad random.

This was on of the shrines, and those are real pigs heads...yuk!

Showing again the randomness of the lanterns, here is a a Triceratops...this ones for Dinosaur World!

Some of the beautiful Lanterns on display.

Another chinese dragon lantern.

Now we have the Lantern sea creature ensemble!

A swan!

A green sea turtle!

Some fish floating in the sky.

This lanterns for Emma, the Horse leaping in the sky, it's really pretty.

I just thought the ladybird was cute.

Here is a super giant lantern...which was nice.

At this point we were all bloody freezing and we decided to have a nice cup of tea and chat before heading back into the cold. The cafe we stumbled upon was pretty nice and the woman took pictures of all her customers, so we were added to the collection! By the time we had wittered and drank tea it was dark outside, which meant we got to see the lanterns lit up.

Here is the flying horse lantern in full glory.

The lanterns are so much more beautiful at night.

We went into a square near the temple which had many food and souvenir stalls round the edge. There was traditional chinese music being played and a really nice atmosphere.

Here was the centerpeice. It was to celebrate the year of the dog (hence all the dogs) but I thought it was a little tacky.

Carrie...pulls a strange face for a reason still unknown to me.

Carrie, Melissa and Emilie enjoy the atmosphere.

Matt was with us to see the Lanterns too.

Here is the mucisians on stage, the music was so beautiful.

A giant dragon in the sky.

Another giant dragon in the sky.

Here is a food stall but I couldn't see what they were cooking!

Another dragon...maybe I went slightly overboard on the dragon snaps!

So, another great weekend in Japan!

posted by Icciv @ 3:24 pm