In February of 2018, the Madisons and I took a little trip to Disneyland to participate in their Lunar New Year Celebrations! We hadn't ever visited the parks while this celebration was going on, so this was a brand new Disney experience for us!
The main hub for all the Lunar New Year events was in California adventure, in Paradise Pier, starting in front of Ariel's ride. Since 2018 was the year of the dog, Pluto was featured on all the posters, the authentic spirit of prosperity and hope for the Lunar New Year abounds at Disneyland during this yearly multi-day festival of Asian culture.
No special event at Disneyland is complete without some unique and awe-inspiring food. For Lunar New Year, Authentic Asian foods were available at various marketplace kiosks throughout the festival area. The marketplaces focus on Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese dishes in a smaller sample size. This allowed us to taste several dishes from the various marketplaces including savory, spicy and sweet flavors.
As soon as we saw the complimentary face painting station, we knew we would be making a stop there since Vienne looooves to get her face painted. We all ended up getting matching dragon tattoos on our arms.
A family of dragons
We made sure to arrive early to the Mulan and Mushu processional to get a good spot. Little did we know how good of a spot we actually had gotten ....
The spot we had reserved ended up being the end point of all the parades, so we had the perfect, front row view to every colorful costume, V even got a couple of high fives from Mushu.
If you can only see one thing during the Lunar New Year celebration, do not miss this incredible showcase! Dozens of dancers, musicians and characters perform in this street party-style procession, Drummers and flag-bearers lead the parade, parasol dancers, ribbon-twirlers and an impressive dragon dancers celebrate the arrival of Mulan and her dragon friend Mushu to the Lunar New Year celebration.
Goofy is here too, dressed as the “god of Good Fortune”.
After the procession, we got to meet some of the dancers, they were smitten with Vienne and V loved their amazing costumes.
Next, we headed over to get a good seat for the GuGu Drum Group from Shanghai. These skilled performers tell stories through rhythmic, synchronized drumming and fluid movements. They were fascinating to watch.
We ended our Lunar New Year celebration by spending some time at the Lucky Wishing Wall and getting our names written out in beautiful Chinese calligraphy.
We made sure to add our new year wishes to the lucky wall.
Bethy got a couple of bao buns to try
We passed by a Micky and Minnie meet and greet, they looked so adorable in their festive, traditional outfits.
When it was our turn at the calligraphy table, there were a couple of different greetings we could choose from to go along with our name.
We absolutely loved the Lunar New Year celebration, it was colorful, magical, beautiful and full of happy wishes for the New Year. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, I would highly reccomend it!
Bonus Picture: While in DCA we spotted Olaf/ LeFou enjoying the parks!!! I always love a good celebrity sighting at Disney.
No comments:
Post a Comment