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Fortified by another great breakfast, I talked to the concierge at the hotel, and was told there was some kind of event happening two stops down on the subway. It turned out to be a celebration of the new year; the year of the Goat and/or Sheep. Wandering down the road, I spotted a couple of guys in cool costume. Fortunately, a Chinese rubbernecker also spotted them and posed for a photo.
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As the crowd got thicker, I could make no more progress along the street, so decided to walk back a little. As I was doing this, suddenly, a parade started. It started with a guy with a huge flag and some drums and cymbals, then we had dragons, stilt-walkers (who did back-bends, putting their hands on the ground then flipping back up). These were followed by some cool 'double puppets', including some that were fighting each other. After these came the spectacularly dresses gentleman pictured above who I took to be the emperor, but on reflection, he probably wasn't. He wasn't dressed in yellow. Then there was a guy with some big fans, and some shabbily dressed 'tradesmen' with trays of goods to sell. Following that was the empress in her sedan chair, then some women on horses. The parade ended with some more dragons.
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The parade was progressing towards two huge drums at the end of the street. When the parade got to them it simply broke up. The dragons went off and smoked.
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The drums were incredible. Being huge, the sound of them went right through me, and I was transfixed for twenty minutes or so. The drummers were almost dancing, so energetic was their action. The two drums weren't playing in accord though. They seemed to be competing with each other, it seemed to be more of an argument between the two instruments than a duet. Both were positioned beneath a huge golden goat, the animal of the new year they were welcoming.
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I jumped back on the subway and returned to the hotel with enough time to pack before the 11am deadline. The trip home was smooth, thought it was the smallest jet I've ever ridden in. The wings looked far too little to lift us off the ground, but we made it back home without disaster. I took a total of 368 pictures on my trip, and they can all be viewed here (not any more 23/12/30).