January 30, 2012

happy (lunar) new year

After a lazy Saturday that consisted mostly of Lego building, stop-motion movie making (Evelyn's first on her own) and kitting a good four inches of Will's sweater only to realize I set the sleeves too close to each other - which led to much ripping out of stitches and some, ahem, unladylike words on my part- Evie and I were ready to get out of the house on Sunday and headed down to Chinatown for a girls afternoon.

We walked up the steps of the subway with just enough time before the parade to buy a few confetti tubes and then found a spot to watch the neighborhood ring in The Year of the Dragon.
I've never been to a parade where the watchers throw things at the marchers, but it seems that's how a Lunar New Year parade rolls. Confetti, poppers and more and more confetti were tossed at Insurance sponsored floats, congressmen and lots of dragons. I'm not sure I'd like to have those exploding popper things thrown at me if I was walking along with a giant dragon puppet on my head, but it didn't seem to startle anyone else.
Walking the long way back to the subway, we stopped and bought some unidentifiable"treats" at a stand where everything seemed to be $1.24, big or small (one turned out to be a tasty cake like thing, the other is some kind of doughy-jelly like substance that tastes of bananas, sort of) and then stopped at a tea shop I love in Soho to warm up.
Evelyn has only recently come over to the land of tea drinkers and she loves the Spiced Plum (decaf) tea that I get at Harney and Sons. Mostly, I suspect, because it's red, which means that with milk, it's pink. Go figure.

I know its trendy and overly cool and hip and all that, but I love SoHo. One of these days I'd like to spend a whole day down there without kids just wandering in and out of the stores. Not that I'd be able to buy much, unless I go back to the $1.24 stall in Chinatown. But just looking would be fun. Ahhh, someday.