Saturday was the Chinese New Year street fair in Chinatown. The parade was supposed to start at 5pm (strange, that's after sundown- either they want to have lots of lights on their floats or they're waiting for people to be back from school and work, I guess). I went earlier to have a look at the stalls.
On Grant Avenue- the most touristy street in Chinatown. I was hoping to find lots of street food and traditional artwork for sale, I even made sure I had a slightly empty stomach to bring with me, but there wasn't a single food stall there (ok, except the kettle corn and candy apple stalls, but that doesn't do) Instead there were lots of boring stalls such as big companies giving away free reusable bags or having lucky draws, casinos companies having mini lotteries and some free health checkups. I kind of suspect they are catering to the notion that a lot of Chinatown residents will be older people who are kiasu about getting free stuff. But really, we need some joyful CNY atmosphere in here. Even if the parade is so late that it's pass Chap Goh Meh.
There's a lion dance school near the parade route, so we can see the performers getting ready. This is how they hold the dragon suit;like a Chuppa Chup stand.
Here they are getting the lion suit on. It's a little strange and fun to see Caucasians and African Americans taking part in the parade too.
And here they are going to the parade starting point.It's going to get difficult to shoot good pictures in the dark later.
So nevermind about the absence of good stalls at the fair, Chinatown has lots of traditional chap fan shops and bakeries around, so I just got my dinner there.
And then the parade starts. These are screen captures from some videos I took, a little easier to get sharper pictures.
The parade was pretty good actually, lots of colourful processions, plenty of lion and dragon dances by professional troupes and schoolkids-some made their own costumes, which was cute. And lots of good brass bands too.


The procession was about 3 hours long. It was getting pretty cold by then and I was getting stiff having to stand in the jostling crowd carrying a heavy bag (I found the Chinatown library and a big bounty of books and cds I like while waiting for the parade to start) but they had firecrackers right at the end, which made the wait worth it.
I haven't seen those traditional strings of firecrackers before(a string of 1000 firecrackers, I heard someone mention), so I was a bit scared of how loud it would be. They dangled the string from a crane so that it was in the middle of the street. Then you have to compromise the best place to stand, somewhere between the back crowds pushing you to the front because they want to see clearer, and the front crowd pushing backwards because they don't want to get burnt. And of course it has to be lit by the mayor of SF. That was a fun way to end the night, along with the super long dragon they saved for the very end of the parade.

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I have some food pics, so here they go.
Nasi Pattaya. Wonder if it really came from Pattaya? It's fried rice in an omelette. I added mayo, tomato sauce and cilantro on top, mostly because I had to finish them before they died in my fridge, but it tasted good that way with the extra toppings.
Cucur Badak. Sweet potato balls coated with sesame seeds and deep fried. Similarly I wonder where the name came from, because it makes me think of a rhinoceros being poked.
Imam bayildi. Deep fried eggplants stuffed with vegetables which is roasted. It's a Turkish dish that translates as 'the imam fainted', supposedly because the dish was so good, although there are other less flattering theories about why he would have fainted