Welcome: Year of the Tiger!
 

Happy Chinese New Year to all!

Festivities and celebrations around the globe, not least in Sydney, according to today’s <i>Sunday Telegraph:</i>

“Sydney, home to 300,000 people with Chinese ancestry, boasts its Chinese New Year Festival will be the world’s biggest outside Asia.”

Coinciding with Valentine’s Day, it’s a double-dip (y) for celebrations.

Tiger energy is emotional, stubborn and passionate – for those born in 1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986 or 1998.

The forecast by Chinese astrologers is rather dismal for the year, “more wild weather, news of dramatic volcanic activity and earthquakes.”

So drink, eat, make merry and do the valentine-duo-dance today! Enjoy.

Celebrations got rained out in Canberra this weekend, but fortunately there's leeway to postpone them (so advises our Chinese-Australian niece-in-law*).

Tet, the Vietnamese festival, is also in full swing. Our daughter, who's working in Hanoi on an aid project, has been impressed by a huge influx of traditional potted cumquat trees into the city. I imagine Sydney's Cabramatta area will be pretty lively too.

* If that's a recognised category? Can one use "NIL" in Fodorspeak?

I think Cabramatta's probably pretty wet too, Neil. I measured 250pts (65mm)Friday night and 70 pts (17.5mm) last night - short sharp dumps. Just started to rain again now.

Sydney has already been saturated with twice the normal February rainfall, and more to come. Raining as we speak ... maybe this is part of the ‘wild weather’ prediction?

Apparently, the celebration has been ‘widened’ this year to include the Vietnamese and Korean Sydneysiders, thus doubling the numbers celebrating.

The big Parade from Sydney Town Hall to Chinatown is scheduled for next Sunday - featuring no less than 27,000 performers - so hopefully good karma will appease the rain gods during the week.

Now for a really chaotic scenario, if they have to postpone it to the following week, it will co-incide with the G&L Mardi Gras and we'll have a parade that will be equal to 'dramatic volcanic activity' :) ... dragons in g-strings and kites on bikes.

And Fodorspeak does include n-i-l unless of course it's celebration time and you actually mean nudder-in-law.

"... dragons in g-strings and kites on bikes"

The mind boggles. Now, that would throw up a serious challenge to San Francisco.

(Bokhara2, we've had 97mm since Friday, 4" in the old money - almost unheard of.)

Wow! That's serious rain!

Sure is, Rob.

The frogs are croaking "Knee Deep" & hopping around in fins, goggles & snorkels. Worse, the big old green fellow in the banana trees is croaking "More Rain, More Rain". I've sent for the shipwrights!

I'm on the northern beaches in Sydney & have measured just over 10 1/2 " (264mm) so far in February, just under 30% of last year's total rainfall. The good thing is that most of the rain has been in late afternoon & night storms, so for anyone visiting, the weather's ok. Very humid, as it usually is in February, but certainly not raining all day, every day, as the figures might indicate.

Probably more info than anyone wants to know - but just to give you an idea -
Recent February & annual totals were:

Year February Year total
2006 - 812 pts (203mm) 33.56" (860mm)
2007 - 660 pts (165mm) 49.64" (1242mm)*
2008 - 12" (300mm) 40.92" (1023mm)
2009 - 668 pts (167mm) 38.56" (964mm)

* 2007 was the year we had wild storms in Sydney & North Coast during the June Long Weekend; the Pasha Bulker was blown aground in Newcastle, and several people were washed away & drowned in their cars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Pasha_Bulker

and some Sydneysiders talk about rainy melbourne-we wish!!!!
Actually it's Lunar New Year for most Asians so not technically correct to use the term Chinese new Year-anyway Gung Hai Fat Choi!!

There's a lot of rubbish sprouted in the inter-city rivalry, Northie. I lived in Melbourne for a year & loved it. It's been tragic to see Melbourne's beautiful old trees & lovely gardens dying in the prolonged drought. Bit of smirking on Melbournians part last Christmas, I should think. Sydney was deluged & Melbourne's weather was superb. Guess which Sydneysider was in Melbourne :)