the girly who shall end all girls

Sunday night was the Caledonian & St Andrew's Society of Seattle Gung Haggis Fat Choy III. Robert Burns was born 250 years ago, and it's the year of the Ox. naturally, these events should be celebrated together. (hey, the Canadians thought of it first.)

so i was there to photograph lions. the lions started the event, followed by the Kenmore & District Pipe Band. after that, a rap-style performance of Address tae the Haggis accompanied by bagpipe and djembe. there was a ceremonial cutting of the haggis.

i love Seattle so much. (note the sunglasses on the portrait of Burns, among other things.)




we were invited to stay for dinner, so i ate my first haggis with chopsticks...followed by a more typical Hong Kong-style meal. (where, among other things, i found out that twenty years ago sifu was training to race hydros for the event organizer. WTF.) haggis is pretty good as an appetizer. i'm not sure i would want a plateful, though. the little girl highland dancers were fascinated with the little girl chinese dancers and vice versa.

we sang Auld Lang Syne in Mandarin at the end of the night.
more photos on flickr

yay, flying lettuce shot!

another round of Chinese New Year pics is up. this set includes the wakeup ceremony for two new lions, keeping evil out of the meat aisle, and explosions.

types encountered through the course of the day included the pyro grocer and his little old customer who doggedly pulled her rolling cart through a maze of explosions to do her Sunday shopping. i also had to chase a white dude back before the firecrackers in front of House of Hong blew up him and his iPhone. (both sets from this weekend you can see lots of people in the crowd holding up their phones.)

i spent the weekend taking pictures of Chinese New Year lion dances and events. and now i sort and cull and crop...and hope to be done before the next event this Sunday :)

here's a sampling from Saturday:
















i haven't even started sorting the Sunday ones yet. here's the full Saturday set on Flickr

i meant to carry a flag or something, but i was drafted into taking pictures. (for which i was completely unprepared. took pictures Friday, spent Saturday and Sunday cursing my lack of skills and prep for shooting inside in dim light, etc etc etc.)

anyway, the new hotel at the Tulalip Casino is all full of luck and stuff. Northern and Southern lions (eight total), the tea table, the kung fu bus, and more at flickr.