Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year in Penang was the best accident EVER.

We arrived early evening and we were anxious about finding somewhere to stay on this busy holiday. Every hostel/hotel (and there were many) we had called in advance was either full or wouldn't take a telephone booking. We had some ideas of places to try that we had heard were good, however out of laziness and apprehension we decided to ask in the first place we came across. It wasn't great but it was available and cheap so we settled.

Over a fantastic chicken tandoori and bindhi massala we met a lovely couple from the states who were in the know about the celebrations for New Years Eve taking place in Georgetown and pointed us in the right direction of the evening events. We ended up getting to the town hall quite early as we weren't sure exactly what to expect. It turned out the event was all being filmed for a special new years eve live programme very much like back at home where the main show cuts to various other cities every now and again to show whats going on.

Over the evening there was various acts to keep us entertained. This included a strange magician, singers, dancers, men throwing huge flag poles and then catching them on the forehead/mouth and in the grand finale, fireworks and a Lion Dance.

The highlight was definitely when during the middle of the traditional Lion Dance the drummers suddenly stopped and music cut to Gangnam style to which dancers pulled some excellent moves all whilst tottering around on the 2m stilts.

We were pretty impressed by the whole thing especially as it was only by chance we were in Penang over the Chinese New Year.