One Lunar Year has passed since I was at the last Lantern Festival held at Albert Park in Auckland and I had one year to make up for my mistake I made last year. Those were leaving too late and getting traffic jammed in Auckland central thus extending the time to find a car park, abandoning the friends I went with and then completely losing them in the crowd and being too frantic and self hating that I did the mentioned things that I didn't get any food from any of the food stalls that line the entire length of Princess Street.
This year Kim Shepherd and I decided to head into town early. It was easier done as I wasn't driving from Hamilton but when we got into city centre it took us about one and half hours to actually find a park due to traffic, restricted parking and parking lots being full. Finally we found a parking lot that wasn't full at Sky City Casino before embarking to the event.
The timing of the parking wasn't all bad. Sure it sucks to just sit at lights crawling a couple of car spaces forward before stopping again and watching all the party goers in their nice dress flowing around you, but when we actually got to the event it wad night fall. First was to get food. This time I actually went to get something to eat and although some of the snacks I got were average, the Nasi Lemak I had was right on point the flavours you'd get in Malaysia.
The lantern festival is one of the few events in Auckland where you can experience what it's like to be in a densely populated country. It's the experience of not having personal space, something we take for granted in New Zealand. As Kim puts it you slot yourself into the mass of people and just move in the general direction they move. You also can't be nice about getting you place especially lining up for food. Be nice and it'll never be your turn. No where else I've been to in New Zealand do you get to experience that.
With food out of the way it was time to take look at the lanterns. I was impressed that even though there were a couple of setups that was recycled from last year, the majority of them were new. Kim mentioned that it was a shame that they don't decorate the existing sculpture and fittings there with lanterns just to give them a different look. I agreed, Albert Park looks really different when the festival is on and by decorating the existing fixtures, it would change the feel of the park more.
The evening ended with a live show. It was about 10pm by the time we wondered into the concert area and the band that was playing was Askar Grey Wolf. A very interesting and confusing band. They fuse folk music from China, India, Middle East and Central Europe and mix it with rock. The combination is definitely something I haven't heard before. The crowd was quite placid during the show but some how the lead singer, who was a character in himself. A Chinese Led Zeppelin look a like, he was rocking the small crowd to them wanting an encore. It was a shame it was such a small crowd but he did work them even though they had no idea what he was saying or singing. I think at a proper music event, the people would be more into it but still very entertaining to watch and listen to.
I'm very impressed with this festival. I thought that because I've seen it last year it wouldn't be appealing again this year. I was wrong. I guess it's just something that I enjoy no matter how many times I've seen it. It was just a shame I was not able to share this with someone was unable to see most of event due to my mistake I made last year. We'll have to try this again next year.
0 comments:
Post a Comment