Chinese New Years in Taipei

Hello readers!
Chinese New Years (CNY), called Spring Festival, is fast approaching this year in Taipei as February 4th. It begins on the first day of the lunar year calendar (usually around February) and ends on the lantern festival (15 days later). The significance is akin to that of Thanksgiving and Christmas where everyone goes home and celebrates together. So the Spring Festival is very important all over Asia and everyone here in Taipei gets several days off as an official holiday season. Most everyone in Taipei will be emptying out to go home in the more southern parts of the island.

The lunar new year celebrates the zodiac animals and this year is the year of the pig. Here our little girl dressed up as a pig at one of the government play centers. To learn more about the Chinese zodiac animals, here is a link for wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_zodiac. Speaking of pigs, there's a story of a mommy pig that's almost as inspiring as Charlotte's Web: https://www.ntd.com/inspiring/gravely-ill-mama-pig-miraculously-recovers-when-farmer-puts-13-newborns-by-her-side_575032.html. The mommy pig named Emma was exhausted with her 17 little pigs but after a short break she recovers when they come back by her side! As a mom I can totally relate as it is exhausting taking care of kids but they are also the reason I find to take better care of myself so I can take care of them.

However for foreigners living abroad in Asia going home to celebrate with family doesn't usually happen around this time. Our Spring Festival plans involve going to see the lion dance at the Grand Hyatt hotel (starts at 11 am on 2/5), visiting IKEA for some much needed kids kitchenware and seeing the Line Friends and Studio Ghibli exhibits. We'll be blogging about our adventures there.

UPDATED 2/28/2019

We ended up going to the Grand Hyatt at around 11 a.m. on New Year's day. The festivities take place right outside the lobby and then moved into the lobby. Here our girl is checking out the lion costume that the dancers placed on the lobby floor. There were other activities like calligraphy writing, balloon designs and silk screening that we left before we could do as the kids wanted to nap.