Lionfest

I was better by Friday night and we thought the cause of the excruciating stomach pains and frequent toilet trips was food poisoning as I had found some mould on pumpkin seeds I had been eating. So we thought we would still have a go at doing all the things we had planed for the long weekend.

First up we met with some friends to go orange picking only when we got there the orchard was closed, oh well that one turned out to be a dud but we headed out to Windsor to have lunch with them instead. Then after lunch we piled all the kids into the car and headed off to the city to see Lionfest. Eli threw up in the car on the way, we remained clueless and thought he had just guzzled his lunch.

Lionfest is a celebration of the diverse nature of the arts of lion dance Dragon dance and martial arts. We arrived just in time to see a cool stick battle I’m afraid it may have been inspiring for the kids.

Every performance was accompanied by traditional drumming, a gong and a group of cymbalists. It was incredibly loud, there is just no way to adequately describe the voluminous resonating sounds that blanketed the performance space with noise and bounced enthusiastically around the inside of your skull.

This guy was hilarious, he made a very poor attempt to tame his Lion and train it to to sit and beg.

mostly the Lion grabbed hold of him and threw him around the floor. Lilly was a little petrified but after the mans head had been in the lions jaws half a dozen times and he was still breathing she settled down.

There was heaps of deferent performances, Lions climbing up on tables and poles and throwing oranges and short red sticks at the audience (It must have meant something traditionally I must look up orange throwing does anyone know what it could have meant??)

I’m afraid the noise got to Eli

But then members of their own troop were blocking their ears too so I’ll let him off.

We finished off the night by visiting a Chinees tourist shop and ogling all the jade dragons. The girls bought a Chinese music doll each and Eli bought meditation balls. Then we went around to the food court and had Chinese food for dinner only Eli didn’t because by then he was vomiting heaps.