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LUNAR_NEW_YEAR
February 16, 2025
So, we officially rode in
the Year of the Snake at After starting out in Japantown and
San Francisco's Lunar New walking over, which it occurs to me
Year parade-- was the route Patti Smith followed in
her _The Year of the Monkey_.
I took a glance at the Parade
route, and wondered what the
scene was like over on the West
side of things-- I suggested we
try the short stretch of Post
street north of Union Square.
After some manuevering around we
found a corner curb we could Post & Stockton
stand on with a group of shorter
people in front of us, and we
watched most of the parade from
there.
I liked the parade well enough, but it was
oddly unimpressive much of the time. Most
of the snakes, lions and dragons the groups There were some nice
were manipulating had a lightly-decorated floats of course,
store bought look to them. A lot of the some with the traditional
efforts had an under-funded look to them. waving asian women in
gowns-- some of the more
Where we were standing we could look up interesting ones were
Stockton toward the corner of Union Square oddly lacking in riders...
that was clearly the focus of everyone's I'm guessing they didn't
efforts-- the well-heeled paying customers pass someone's heavy-handed
seated on the side of the Square. safety regulations...
I suspect it was a minor tactical error for One of the more impressive
us-- we were right downstream of this area, was a gigantic red
where everyone in the parade was still tired shopping cart full of
from their main effort. human beings, with a
classic hot-rod engine
Then near the end of the parade, as we were mounted low down below
starting to walk west on Post getting ready the basket.
to leave, you could see where the money had
gone--- A perfect execution
of a remarkably
There was a massive, insane professional fireworks silly idea, reminscent
show on the other side of the square, with of Burning Man.
some of the most elaborate incendiaries I'd ever
seen-- they weren't fired just straight up,
they could go at criss-crossing angles,
they were whipping some sort of howiztzer
back and forth firing curtains of rockets
in different directions while banks of flame
throwers sent jets of flame ten feet up.
Just by chance, we were standing in a perfect
place to see this-- I doubt I would've *wanted*
to be one of the paying customers sitting closer
to it-- and the large orange and yellow finale
dragon was marching along in front of us as the
fireworks continued.
If you were one of the mere hoi polloi trying to
watch the parade from over in Chinatown, you
might not even know this fireworks finale existed--
it was there for the paying customers.
We thought we could leave walking up Powell on the
outside edge of the parade route: both Union Square and
the bordering streets and sidewalks were closed off,
with San Francisco police turning people back.
We were lucky we were allowed on Post Street. Welcome to the
New America.
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
_________| |_________________| |_________________| |______
parade route ---> -----\ Geary St.
_________ _________________ | _________________ ______
| | paying | V | | |
| | customers | | | |
| | | P | | |
| S | Union | o | | |
| t | Square | w | | |
| o | | e | | |
_________| c |_________________| l |_________________| |______
To <=== k <--- parade <---/ l Post St. <== From
China _________ t _________________ _________________ ______ Japan
Town | o | | | | | Town
Where | n | | | | |
we were
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