Rogers Chinese Lantern Festival

Last night, I went with my parentals to the Chinese Lantern Festival at Ontario Place. It's been happening since July 20th and since my brother got media access to it, he's been raving about it and said that it was a must see. And me being an OP brat, I agreed. Although it's a little pricey to attend, thanks to my mom who got us group rate tickets through work, we were able to go. So off we went via the "Better Way" (TTC). Took the streetcar all the way to the CNE since our tickets got us grounds admission after 6pm. As soon as we arrived at CNE, some parade was going by and the paraders started throwing beaded necklaces at the crowd. Caught about 6 of them and snatched a few away from little kids. Hehehe. Quick hands my friend....quick hands. Afterwards, we walked to OP. After eating dinner by the marina docks, we lined up at the Cinesphere to watch an IMAX film about the first Emperor of China. After working at OP for 2 seasons, I knew the Cinesphere lines get pretty long on a normal day and with CLF, it would get even longer. So we started lining up at 7:30pm for a 8pm show. It was a pretty cool movie; although, it would have been better if there were some subtitles for the parts where the actors were speaking in Mandarin. I was just as lost as the gwai lo folk.

The movie ended at around 8:40pm and there was another movie about pandas that begin at 9:15am. Some people (more like the Chinese folk) thought they were cool ("ho bah bye") enough to stay in their seats. What losers. They were eventually kicked out and told to line up again. Hehehe. And while walking down the stairs at a stop and go pace, I was bodychecked by a grandma! OMG...she was like shoving everyone out of her way and yelling to her family "let's go see the lanterns!" (wah...hue tai dung lung ah!) like 5 million times. Geee....I was a little embarrassed to be Chinese at that time, since there were sooo many caucasians around. Anyhoo...as soon as we got out, the lights of the lanterns were on and people (majority of them Asians) just decided to stop in the path and started taking pictures while the people behind them were trying to get out of the theatre. Such inconsiderate people. And some people wonder why I want to be a "banana". It's because of these folk that make me want to hide, shed my yellow skin and put on a new set of skin. Anyhooo....we lined up again for the panda movie. It was cool. I liked the little cute pandas. The moral of the story: save the pandas!

After the movie, we began the little walking path of the lanterns. Quite cool. I took a picture of most of the lanterns. All of the pictures are posted in my Flickr account. I apologize for the shabby quality of the pictures. I'm not a professional and my camera isn't the top of the line. I also had to take a few pictures at a really quick pace since there were lots of people walking and also wanting to take pictures as well. I tried my best.

Anyway, we also saw the nightly fireworks display from the CNE. They didn't compare to the one's I saw from the Casino du Lac-Leamy Sound of Light show when Italy performed. But this time, I was able to take a couple of pictures where the fireworks didn't look like fuzzy lines! Hehehe. That's because we were really close to where they were "popping".

Anyway, it was a good evening and I'm looking forward to going to the back next week to amuse myself with the attractions (at OP) and exhibits (at CNE). No CLF this time around, since it's a separate price from the regular entrance fee. I can't wait to go on my two favourite rides at OP: Wilderness Adventure and Bumper Boats. Oh...how I miss my staff pass.