Chinese New Year in Chinatown, Boston
Hey hey, loyal followers! January 29 was Chinese New Year, and I went to Chinatown in Boston to celebrate! Here’s what we did.
When we got there, we walked around a bit to see what kind of shops & restaurants there were, and just to see the celebration. Soon, we could hear loud explosions in the air—firecrackers! Firecrackers were on of the 3 things left on a stool outside shops, along with oranges & cabbage. At first we didn’t know why, but then we saw two dragon puppets and some people with masks march toward a store! We followed them, and we soon figured out that the masked people & the dragons would dance around a bit, then go inside and dance around the store, and then come out again. Then, one of the dragons would pretend to eat the oranges and cabbage and then lie down for a bit. When it got up again, it would toss the oranges and cabbage out of it’s mouth and into the air! They would march away, and someone else would light the firecrackers and throw them onto the ground. And they were super loud up close!
After a while we got hungry, so we tried to find a restaurant. We didn’t find anything that wasn’t crowded at first, but then we found a place called the Empire Garden Restaurant. We walked up 2 flights of stairs, and then came to a little room. There was another room through a door, and when we got a view, we saw how HUGE it was! There are some pictures of it at the end. We sat down, poured ourselves some tea, and checked out the menu. Our order was composed of 2 different soups (hot & sour soup and wonton soup), a plate of noodles, and the Pupu Platter, which included on it crab rangoon, chicken wings, boneless spare ribs, beef teriyaki, shrimp lo hai & egg rolls. By the time we were done, we couldn’t eat anything else until the ride home!
When we came back out we walked around a bit more. Once, we heard some firecrackers, but they didn’t stop. They just kept going on for 5 minutes! We checked out a cool store called Chinatown Hit which sold things like Chinese fans, lucky cats, jade statues, and even an enormous bronze statue of the Chinese General Kwan! Then we walked around some more. Strangely, almost nobody was cleaning or even cared about all the cabbage, oranges, and firecracker wrappers just lying in the street. Near the end, my mother wanted to go to a bakery for some sweets. After we visited 2 of them to purchase some crispy cookies and a strange cupcake dessert, we visited the last one. And when we got inside, there was a stool with an orange, a head of cabbage and a roll of firecrackers just waiting to be lit and eaten! A picture is at the end. We stayed inside to watch the procession of eating the food and lighting the firecrackers.
After that, we headed home and ate our desserts in the car. It was quite a day!
I hope you enjoyed this post and the pictures that follow. Check out my other posts, and feel free to post a comment!
