I Want My Tangloong!

As you may already know that Terese and I went to the Lantern Festival last night and what a nice night it was, warm and balmy like summer already.

Its actually called the Children Lantern Festival and was organised by the Vietnamese Community of Australia. The festival had actually been on all day but we wanted to see the lanterns which started at 6 pm.

Beside the lanterns there were lots of singing on stage but there were all vietnamese songs so I wasn't interested. I've come to see the lanterns!

There were also food stalls selling vietnamese foods and also chips and drinks and everything else. Check out the lanterns they have in this stall here, too bad they're not sharing those.

We opted to have some BBQ prawns and beef coz they're less messy to handle and you can eat as you walk around the place looking for those lanterns. I want my tangloong!

And here they are! They're giving away tangloong to everyone so everyone can participate in the lantern ceremony later when it gets dark. I want my tangloong!

And so did everyone else coz the queue was this long! Better get in line if I want to get my tangloong. While we were waiting in line we didn't know if there would be enough tangloong for everyone and if there's a shortage then big kids like me will have to miss out!

But luckily this uncle told us there's thousands of tangloong so everyone will get one tonight as he handed them out to us and helped lit the candles too. Please uncle, may I have one tangloong?

Soon everyone has their own tangloong and they were asked to wait for further instruction, apparently there's going to be lion dance as well and we were going to follow the lions and they dance along the river bank.

This is the tangloong that kind Uncle gave me. Its a Pikachu tangloong but I didn't want to light mine yet coz I'll be busy taking photographs later so I left it with Terese. At least I have my tangloong!

Soon the lions started to dance and everyone carrying tangloong were told to follow the lions as they moved from the square, down the stairs and long the river bank.

There were so many children with their parents following the lions and everyone had a tangloong with them. My photo doesn't show it but the sight of the tangloong in the twilight was quite amazing.

Every few yards the lions would stop and dance a while at one place before moving further along the river bank all the while followed by the tangloong carriers. It was fun and we had a ball!

Especially me coz I have my tangloong! Not just one but two! I'm the biggest kid in the crowd and after that I went back to ask for more tangloong! We managed to score another three!


When we got home we lit all the 5 tangloong, hung them up indoor so there's no wind and I took some nice photos of them. This was taken in total darkness except for the lights from the tangloong and the camera was seated on a chair and set to timer shot. If I had taken it manually by hand it would never have come out that good.

I wanted my tangloong and now I got my tangloong! Did you get your tangloong?