Twilight Parade

Arlington, Texas is a big suburb - but twice a year it feels again like a small town revolving around two parades - the BIG parade at 4th of July and the growing craze near Christmas called the Parade of Lights. It was this Parade of Lights that stuck with me and peaked my interest when I found out about the Chinese New Year's Twilight Parade.
I was excited to see the parade started with a lighted Ox - It is the Year of the Ox! I didn't know that every third float would be a lighted animal of some sort. Although I couldn't catch pics of them all...have to say my favorite was the seahorse (which sort of looked like an ant-eater at first).

The lighted floats with people on them were something of sight! Too bad they moved by too quickly for my camera to get a decent photo. I realized about half way through the parade that we were standing half a block away from the Grand Stand (where it was completely packed and unviewable). This meant that all the floats and performers 'made up time' from their performance in front of the judges by flying past the next block. I was lucky to catch the pics that I did...

The funniest float (to me) was this one with cardboard cutouts of people rather than real people...can't say that I understand what they were thinking. But the pagoda hut at the front was pretty breathtaking.

In between floats came groups of people - which did not show up in my photos except as dots where their twinkle lights were set. However, the people were totally cool. A drum group - I would say about 100 drummers! A martial arts group where each member held a big stick (don't know the proper name), whip, or nunchuck. At the call of the leader, everyone stopped and performed the same martial arts moves (with sounds) on an invisible attacker. A whole slew of beautiful women in different costumes strolled by - the most memorable were the women in an outfit resembling a Chinese Lantern around their hips...the bottom of the lantern stopped about their knees and the rest of the costume was completely straight thus they had to shuffle down the street!

Eventually, other random things appeared including this TV Station Van decked out in neon lighting. This seems like a lot of work for one parade - do you think they have it like that all year round?

And I couldn't post this without thanking the friends I dragged along to the somewhat lame event. Scott, Emily, and David endured an hour of the funny floats and crazy costumes. Hope they had as good a laugh as I did!