Chinese New Year 2013: The Parade in Ottawa Chinatown – S08E26

It was a chilly but wonderful Saturday as the lions and dragon roamed through Ottawa Chinatown for the annual Chinese New Year parade. Also on hand were other drummers and twelve animals from the Chinese zodiac.
This year was unique as it was in conjunction with Winterlude/NCC.
For myself, I was on the cymbals and the tail of the lion. The photo shown had Ottawa mayor, Jim Watson giving the red pocket to the lions under the Chinatown Gateway. It was definitely the popular spot as crowds waited for the lions and dragon to come through the part of Chinatown.

Don’t forget to check some of the photos I took during the parade.
Here’s a short clip via Vine at this link.

Overall, the weather was great and fun watching families and their kids be happy for the occasion. I forgot to mention that the seventh day of Chinese New Year is everyone’s birthday.

Chinese New Year 2013: The CNY & Valentine’s Day Show – S08E25

Gong Hei Fat Choy again!
It’s an annual thing to do the Chinese New Year edition of the radio show. I finally got Candice to join me for this year’s occasion as I previously wanted her to join me on the 2012 edition of the CNY radio show but she was busy with other things. This year made it happier for myself as we got to talk about the traditions and festivities of Chinese New Year.
As usual, we played the Chinese music related to the holiday, no matter how we scoffed at the cheesy tunes played, it can be similar to Christmas music being played non-stop. There were a few “snake” songs played as this year is “the year of the snake.”

The photo shown has us holding Chinese New Year goodies and decorations. It’s the second year to bring the addictive rice crackers and cannot stop eating those.

Aside from Chinese New Year, we also played some love songs for Valentine’s Day. It was pretty jam packed to playing CNY and V-Day songs and both themes have become a yearly staple for my radio show. For the Valentine’s Day show, I would always play a couple of Cantopop love songs and one in particular has been played on V-Day, which happened to be 情人 (translated as Lover) by Beyond.
To my own astonishment, Candice did not know Firestruck by Young Galaxy. I thought she heard songs from their 2009 album, Invisible Republic.

This week’s Wild 10 Countdown has Hayden at the top spot. The summary and other songs played are over at this link.
You can check the playlist from the CNY & V-Day show over at this link.
Lion dance performances have slightly calmed down after Monday and anticipating for the parade in Ottawa Chinatown this Saturday afternoon. Hope to see you there.