More Drums Please!

Today is Joy's 3rd birthday. Happy Birthday Joy! It's also the first day of a little thing called Lunar New Year, often called "Chinese New Year".

We went downtown to Sogo Department Store to see a Lion Dance. There were a lot of people waiting in line to get into the store. The first 300 people could purchase a bag for $100 NT (New Taiwan Dollars). That's about $3.25 US. I'm not sure what else it might have contained, but each bag had some kind of ticket that could win you a prize, including a new car. Wow! There was a guard in line holding up a large sign indicating the 300th person in line. We were much too late to get in the first 300. We didn't even go in the store.

First up was a drumming performance. Great! There's nothing like drums, cymbals and gongs beign played REALLY loudly at 10 AM to get you going. When the drums finished, most of the drums were rolled away and the lions came out. There were 3 large lions and 2 small. They did a great dance. Each large lion has 3 people inside. Sometimes the "head" person would stand on the shoulders of the "rear", making the lion stand up straight and very tall. This all took place outside. Eventually the lions and drummers went inside of the store and continued their performance.

I could not get myself into a good position for photos. We got there too late for that. Here are a few photos anyway.