Gung Hay Fat Choy! (Happy New Year)

As the temperature dropped, we headed downtown to celebrate the arrival of the year 4707, the Year of the Ox. That's how the Chinese calculate it, anyway. London is the site of the biggest Chinese New Year celebration outside of mainland China. The girls were especially entranced by the dancers from China occupying the mainstage. One regional dance troupe in particular impressed us with their imitation of fire. As they twirled the silks of their brightly colored red, yellow and orange costumes, the literally evoked swirling flames before our eyes. All three girls were particularly impressed by the number of boys who danced. Cecily was particularly amazed and explained it to her grandmother later as, "We saw pink princesses, and some of them were boys!" After visiting the mainstage we wandered through Chinatown, where we were literally unable to move in any direction sometimes, so dense was the crowd. We enjoyed watching splendidly costumed dragons perform traditional dances in front of various businesses to ward off evil spirits in the coming year. Olivia and Meredith thought the evil spirits were alive and well, however, when we visited the Chinese grocery store. The sight of trays of pig ears, pig tails, pig tongues, pig hearts, pig kidneys and pig lungs awaiting purchase has put them off Chinese food for a while. They weren't much happier to go home and discover that we were celebrating with another ethnic dish: our first effort at homemade fish and chips, which turned out not so badly!