Welcome, year of the Fire Horse! This post is a bit late. Then again, the new year runs for 15 days, so technically not!

I am not sure if these will become yearly posts, however I felt it was appropriate to make my first post to celebrate. At the same time (or earlier), this site went live! An exciting moment for me. It's not very long, but it highlights a couple of important related memories.

As a young child I was fascinated in the new Zodiac animals, but never knew fully what they meant at the time. One restaurant I knew displayed a massive image of one to celebrate, and my eyes were glued to it whenever I was there at the time.

Most notably, my old school took Chinese new year very seriously. We had a large presence of international Chinese students, so the school put on a celebration show. I also enjoyed it very much. The school owned two large lion costumes, one red and one yellow, and covered in the most mesmerising patterns.

At least three volunteering students were needed to use them for the lion dance performance. They put on a great dance, even getting onto eachothers shoulders to shoot their arms (or legs in this case) up and out to the sound of the cymbals. Another was needed to dress up in a mask and throw lettuce into the crowd on the floor where we sat.

At the time I had no idea what that meant. Unbeknownst to me it was a symbol of good luck, but to some it may have been an unlucky day for them, as they were hit by the oncoming leaves. Just a bit of cabbage collateral (haha). Unfortunately since the school closed, the lion costumes have presumabley been sold off, which is a shame (since I wanted them for myself for display ;) ). Hopefully whoever has them now is using and treating them well for further celebration.

In another year they sang songs and ate wonderful, cultural foods. I wasn't there for that, but I learned of at least one of the songs (embedded here, hope YT doesn't remove it).

Anyways, have a wonderful new year to whoever reads this post. Be sure to come back and see what else is in store later on!