Nagasaki Lantern Festival

Nagasaki Lantern Festival. Chinese New Year has been celebrated for more than 4,000 years. It came from the ancient markings to celebrate the end of a long winter and the beginning of spring. It celebrates the earth coming back to life and the beginning of the growing cycle. Each year is assigned an animal according to the Chinese Zodiac and 2010 is the year of the tiger. Below is Ericko our Tour Guide for the night, Autum and I went with our local MWR Tours. There is the Tiger, very pretty.

This is another lantern this one was pretty big.

Yes those are pig heads, you light an incense and make a wish it is suppose to come true.

Lantern Festival Sign This was going to one of the Shrine's

Lanterns lined down the street in China Town

Autum and I in front of the lanterns

Very, very crowded

This is the year of the Tiger this was my favorite lantern.

We stood in the rain for an hour to watch the dragon dance, then stood another 30 minutes watching it we got really soaked. I just hope we don't get sick :)

Starting the dragon dance. The dragon represents wisdom, power, and wealth. During the dance a dozen performers hold the dragon up on poles. They raise him and lower him using the poles while making him dance. The dragon follows a man carrying a ball with a stick. This is the pearl of wisdom, this represents the dragons way to pursue insight and knowledge.

They were very long and was a great dance to watch.

Dragon Dance this was very neat to watch. They would go out and come back in, the yellow team and the red team.

I liked the red team the best, might have something to do with that team being all woman.