Officially welcoming the year of the rooster!

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I'm going to quote a French sentence I saw on Facebook yesterday: 
J'ai decidé commencer mon année 2017 au mois de février. Je considère que janvier était un mois d'essai gratuit. 
It's a funny post, of course, but it's also apt since the Year of the Rooster starts officially on January 28th, not on January 1st for 2017. Chinese New Year falls on a Saturday this year; which meant that I was in Makati because I had school in the morning. In the afternoon, however, I was in Greenbelt, trying to walk off the heavy lunch I had at Sugi (yeah, eating Japanese food on Chinese New Year is cool, no?). The beating of the drums signaled that the lion dance and/or the dragon dance was being performed nearby.

 

Ever since I was kid, I have always wanted to watch these performances during Chinese New Year. There were several instances when I'd venture away from my parents (who were busy shopping in Divisoria) just to see these characters go from one store to the next. This year, I excitedly edged closer to the action to get up close to the performers. I guess some things just don't change. 

And I wasn't alone. A lot of people in the mall also stopped what they were doing to watch the performances. After all, this only happened once a year. Kids also ran up to the characters with the same glee that they have when they see Jollibee (I am not kidding). Overall, it was such a fun and exciting, albeit short, event in the mall. Until next year...

Gōngxǐ fācái!

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