The world is my school. Today my classroom is at a Lion Dance and watching fireworks for the Chinese New Year.

I woke up and made myself a fort, then Rosie walked over and we played a game. Then I made her and O a breakfast then myself too. I had to start getting ready real soon to go down and watch a Lion Dance. I love Lion Dances! A Lion Dance is where there are two people dressed up like a lion. They are not just any people- they are kung fu masters. There is one in the front holding up the head and one at the back being the rump. They listen to the music that is a percussion beat. The dance began with the manager of 2 Macdonnell Road coming out and making the dragon "come alive" this symbolized that the lion was ready to dance. Then without spending too much time on the ground, the lion jumped up onto a series of stilts. It bounced around on these while I was freaking out in my head because I thought they were going to fall down and hurt themselves! They were fine but when I got the most scared was when one man was holding the other one up and they started jumping around like this. Then the lion "bit" an envelope with lettuce attached to it. He then dropped it on the floor in a nice arrangement and the manager tried to catch the envelope, which contained money. Lots of people say that a Lion Dance and Dragon Dance are the same, but they are not. The Lion Dance has two people in a costume of a lion. The Dragon Dance has 8-10 people all holding sticks leading up to a fake dragon, the dragon always follows a ball in front, so whatever they do, the dragon will do (there is someone holding up the ball on a stick).

During the Lion Dance I was near the instrument section so I wish I had some earplugs- this one had 3 tambourines, 1 mini Gong, and a big drum, which made a beautiful sound. They play the drums because the Chinese say that Buddha is putting the Lion through its paces.

After the Lion Dance I finished my blog for the 10th then went straight onto CTY. Right in the middle of doing that I was pulled away, we were going to the Goldfish Market again because one of Rosie's favorite fish died and she is so upset. We're going back to see if there's a plant to put in the tank for more oxygen. We went down to reception and found out that nothing is open, he was so nice and also checked across the road, they said no. Rosie was so L. I was kind of sad to because Mazy was once my fish as well, but she was Rosie's by far favorite. We went back up and had a ceremony for one of the fish that died, then Captain O found out that Mazy didn't die, there were two small fish and only one of them died! Long live Mazy! While we were doing more work (before firework time) Rosie kept on saying that she didn't want to flush Mazy down the toilet when she dies instead she wants her to go into the bay and if that wasn't possible she'd carry her around in her suitcase. I found that disgusting and sweet at the same time.

Once I finished my CTY lesson from earlier my alarm went off sounding that it was time to go. We headed out then saw so many Philipinos playing cards on the street, because their houses are too small to all get together in so they go into the streets for the Chinese New Year. They do this every Sunday because that is their day off of being a worker. Lunar New Year they have 3 days off so they get together then too. We saw a big wall with around 50 people sitting on it, this was the perfect view for the fireworks. Except for one thing, a sign was right in front of everything so I only got the really tall fireworks. I got some pretty good pictures though, most with a sign in the middle. It was really loud and I found out that light is quicker than sound so when a firework would go boom if your not right where it was shot off you'd hear it around 3 seconds after the sight.

Munch, munching our food, then click clicking on our computers, then snore, snoring. Sound asleep.

<3