The Chinese Year Year celebrations in Sydney are said to be the largest in the world outside of China itself. Naturally I wanted to get in on the action a little bit!

It all started off the night before at the Star Casino, which featured a lion dance and traditional ceremony. I just happened to be there for that one, so I didn’t have my camera at the read. The next day was a planned activity: take in the parade!

It was a night time parade so Tam, myself and a few friends made our way to the end area of the parade in hopes of things being a bit quieter there. Not so much, but we managed to luck into a pretty nice and high vantage point in a bar.

While we waited for the parade to start we got to enjoy a cold beverage and avoid the crowds. After several delays, the Lions started to show up, heralding the start of the parade!

Many different costumes and performers streamed by.

Not to mention, large floats.

The celebration was for the Year of the Snake, so snakes featured heavily in the parade.

There were many colourful and bright floats.

And lots of big snakes!

Part of the amusement of the parade, other than the performers and pyrotechnics, was watching this guy, in the blue jacket near centre frame direct the paraders. He was VERY enthusiastic and direct on which direction he wanted people to go. Amusingly so!

More giant snakes. I think!

And finally one of several big dragons that came along. We didn’t stay for the entire parade, I think we lasted about 50 minutes before calling it enough. Paraded out!

My Sydney adventures were coming to an end soon but I had one great finale with Tam to go before I left (temporarily) for Tasmania. The Blue Mountains. 🙂