Chinese New Year!

While it technically occurred Thursday, the massive Chinese New Year's celebrations took place here on Sunday.  It was a classic London day in Trafalgar Square (gray), and all of Great Britain came out to celebrate - I haven't seen crowds like these since we went to Disneyland the day it broke its record for most visitors.  At least we weren't standing in line to get on Pirates of the Caribbean (approx. wait time: 3 hours).

In a poorly thought-out attempt to get away from the crowds at Trafalgar, we headed to nearby Chinatown...

 

Olga, Kelsey and Steven

...which was, of course, only more packed.  It was lots of fun, though.  There were kids running around with their little paper dragons, and while you got distracted by how cute they were, you'd have the living daylights scared out of you when some other kid threw snap bombs at your feet.  Good food was plentiful, although I could have done without the food poisoning I acquired along with it.  Just as we were trying to get into this restaurant, this guy got there first:

We happened to be in just the right place to see the lion dance!

We did eventually get in, and despite the sign hanging above our table...

You guys know this is a restaurant, right?

...we ate heartily and had a wonderful time.  Although they did try to give me a dish with shellfish, which thankfully my friend Mao sorted out.  Eating that would have put the food poisoning to shame!

Luke, Mao, Olga, Steven, and Paris's hand, accompanied by dragons Dimitri and Szechuan.

In other news, Rachel E., Anjali and I ventured out to Covent Garden Saturday and experienced the ultra-cheap clothing store Primark.  I say experienced because this store is like a permanent Black Friday.  Just trying to breathe was asking a bit much.  We also checked out Selfridge's (voted best department store in the world!), which besides containing an entire confectionery mall ( = Heaven), we were pleased to find a row of all the American foods we've been missing: real peanut butter, Aunt Jemima pancake batter (they think crepes are pancakes here), Kraft Mac and Cheese... you know, the healthy stuff.  My mom had sent Goldfish along with my camera package, and I had to let everyone in my hall try some.  Life without Goldfish or good peanut butter?  It's like they're actively trying to be unhappy!  Just kidding of course; they make up for it in other ways (still dreaming of afternoon tea).  

What else? This weekend we were also joined by our fellow Sagehen Albert, who is at Cambridge studying chemistry.  Mao and I ran around Regent's Park, which turns out to be as pretty as you've heard, and then, of course, Sunday was the Superbowl.  It was lots of fun watching with Brits who kept specifying it as American football, and who had no real loyalty to either team, except for what I told them.  The best part was convincing them that we actually needed to find a feed WITH commercials, because that was half the reason you watched.  They didn't understand at first, but I'm happy to report are now converts : )