Light up your life... Chinese Style!!

Due to a resent bout with the flu, I haven't been able to keep up with creating new posts for my loyal followers... Sorry for my absence,  the good news is that I'm finally getting back to a somewhat normal routine!!

Today's Show & Tell is all about showcasing a little excursion that I [finally] went on a few days ago... The Washington State Chinese Lantern Festival had been scheduled for Spokane as an outdoor fall event. I had made plans to attend when my travel companion became ill resulting in our original plans being cancelled... our second attempt to go became futile when I came down with the aforementioned pesky flu bug... soooo, third time's the charm? Finally, travel day arrived...  I started the morning by opening the drapes, only to be shocked at seeing snowflakes the size of silver dollars falling to the ground! I was definitely not prepared for a 2 hour drive with winter road conditions, especially since my snow tires had not yet been installed, nor was a prepared to walk around in the cold night air to see snow covered displays!! What to do?... cancel again (it would be the last chance before it ends) or hope for the best & hit the road! Well... luckily the forecast was that the snow would just be a morning fluke that would clear by noon... all roads were clear and good to go!

In my opinion, The Chinese Lantern Festival was definitely worth waiting for. It covered several acres of Riverfront Park which was the original site of the 1974 Worlds Fair. All the displays were bigger than life... handmade metal frameworks covered in silk... beautifully lit, colorful works of art!! 

I have decided to spread pictures out into two separate posts... 

(the next post will feature the Animal Lanterns.) 

Below: photos of Part One of the Chinese Lantern Festival... 

they certainly don't do them justice.

Dragon

Dragon - 160 ft long - showing this pic with person to compare it's size!

Chinese Wedding at Temple

Life-Size Animated Wedding Characters from center stage above

It's hard to judge just how big these are... approx. 25 ft. wide

Approx. 15 to 20 ft. tall

 Each Kid is about 6ft. while sitting

Approx. 20ft. wide & tall

Approx. 30 ft. tall

Approx. 20 ft.tall

Festival Gate  (people pictured in front help to shows it's size)

Approx. 30 ft.wide & 25 ft. tall

Each flower is aprox. 5-6 ft. tall and lined a walkway about 40 ft. long

Walkway about 50 ft. long with these lanterns on both sides - the flowers twirled

Hope you enjoyed this first installment of my journey to 

The Chinese Lantern Festival... 

Stop by for Part Two when I feature wonderful life-sized

Animal Lantern displays, until then... Ciao!!