We spent Chinese New Year’s in Hong Kong because supposedly it’s the best place to celebrate the lunar new year.

On Chinese New Year our hotel organized a dragon dance to bring good luck to the new year and everyone in the hotel. There was also a fireworks display in the city and we had an amazing view of it from the top floor of our hotel. From the top floor you can see a huge crowd of people on the street gathered to watch the fireworks. If we weren’t at our hotel we would have been down there with all those people! 🙂

The night before the fireworks there was a parade! I didn’t really like the parade because first of all it was really crowded and second of all we were at the end of the parade route so it took forever for it to come our way (we waited at least one hour!).

Chinese New Year is one of the most important traditional festivals in the world and one of the most important celebrations for Chinese families. The main reasons families celebrate Chinese New Year are to work, have a good rest and relax with the family and to wish for a lucky and prosperous coming year.

Chinese New Year is a time to celebrate and spend time with the family. On New Year’s eve the entire family comes together and has a dinner that is called the reunion dinner. This dinner is believed to be the most important meal of the year.

During Chinese New Year, streets, building and houses are decorated with the lucky colour red. Red is the main colour of the festival. It is believed to bring good luck to the new year.

The main traditions for Chinese New Year are eating dinner with the family, giving red envelopes with money to family and friends, lighting fire crackers, wearing new clothes and decorations for the home.

Each year there is a new zodiac animal. 2017 is the year of the rooster.

After Hong Kong we were travelling to Australia, with a 24 hour layover in Singapore. We spent the day visiting the Singapore Zoo, admiring the supertrees at Gardens by the Bay and eating burgers at midnight!