Chinese Newyear

New year is one of the most important festivals for Chinese people, but it is not on January 1st, but on January 29th. We went to Chinatown of Yokohama to see that event. In Chinese culture red is the color of luck and happyness and the dragon is the symbol of luck, so the streets were decorated with red lanterns and very pretty paper dragons danced through the huge crowd.
As everybody was hungry we went into a chinese restaurant and ate some kind of newyear special menu with 9 different chinese dishes. In china food often is served for the complete group, so we sat on a round table with a turnable wheel where all the food was placed on it. If you wanted some food other than the one in front of you, you just turn the wheel. Very useful. Some of the dishes had a rather scary consistency, but all of them tasted really good :-).
I was very fascinated by the "picture" at the wall of the restaurant. It was actually carved out of wood, played with perspective and the parts of the image actually were solid and sticking out of the image! Very impressive.
When we finished eating (which quite took some time) it has become night. While chinatown looked a little bit shabby during daylight, with wires hanging all over the place and the buildings a little bit grayish and clouded weather, the picture ate night looked completely different.
Especially the gates standing around all over chinatown loocked way better when beeing illuminated at night.