There are plenty of things happening in NYC, that I don’t quite jot down, only because my mind is always preoccupied with other things. For one, the Superbowl XLII happened in Arizona yesterday. The Giants beat the Patriots in what was supposedly the biggest upset in Superbowl history. Heh, if I knew as much about the sport as I did about soccer, I would have watched it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Heh, people splurge on their big screen television sets for this occasion and apparently it’s also the 2nd time of the year when Americans consume the most food (after Thanksgiving of course). Buffalo wings come to mind. I’ve tasted some, and they’re quite tasty. They are basically chicken wings (with the tip of the wing nipped off) marinated in some hot sauce and deep fried in butter and goodness knows what else. Not terribly healthy, but definitely tasty.

Then there are people at subway entrances distributing flyers. Vote Obama 08! I know NYC is a democratic state, and I’m not too sure about Jersey, but I’ve seen plenty of Obama supporters for this year’s presidency. American politics is usually intriguing, and it has its quirks on how the election campaign goes along. Tomororw is Super Tuesday, where the primary presidential candidates are selected (or something along those lines).

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The thing of primary concern to me was Chinese New Year in NYC. That’s on the 7th of Feb this year and I wanted to see if there’s any festivities going on. In Malaysia, the mood for CNY has always been very apparent, with commercials on television, lanterns decorating the streets and fireworks going off in the background. I haven’t been around in KL for a while now so I’m not sure how that has changed over the past few years. In Australia, you don’t really feel it at all and you only manage to witness some lion dances and firecrackers in the city at Chinatown.

Manhattan’s Chinatown is relatively large compared to Melbourne, as it covers a few blocks. However, there weren’t too many decorations on display, but you could see plenty of shops selling decorations and flowers for the festival. I managed to find out online that there was a flower market at Columbus Park inside Chinatown so I decided to go take a look.

Below are some photos of the flower market, which was held under a canopy or rather, a gigantic tent.

Chinese Opera! Costume, dance and song.

Shops in Chinatown selling various stuff.

Everywhere I walked I could hear the sound of drums, where I think people are practising their lion dance routines indoors. It’s a different experience up here in the northern hemisphere, where it’s colder (as opposed to the heat waves I’m used to during this time of year) but you can distinctly feel that the celebrations are near, in a very Chinese way.