Thursday, August 13, 2015

2015 Lantern Festival

 

This year, the botanical garden in St. Louis is having its 2nd Chinese Lantern Festival.  The first was in 2012, and was so successful, they brought the event back this Summer.
Visitors are greeted by a beautiful giant phoenix...



...then come to the Sun Yat-sen entry gate, modeled on the stone archway at Sun Yat-sen's mausoleum in China.  The Chinese characters (read right-to-left) above the center arch mean "Great Love".


On the Chinese calendar, 2015 is the year of the Goat.  The best translation Google Translate could give for the Chinese phrase on the base is "Three Goats Open Thai"; Bing's translation was even worse.  Steve thinks perhaps the goats opened a Thai restaurant together.


The brightly colored Peacock Vase was made out of small, colorful medicine bottles.


The Porcelain Stupas Pagoda


Cherry blossoms along the path 


A display celebrating the Double Ninth Festival - the ninth day of the ninth lunar month.  This year, it will be on October 21 on the Western calendar.


One of the hanging lanterns along the Lantern Way.



The central display in front of the Climatron included fire, smoke, dragons, horses, and winged dragon horses.




And elephants.  Because everyone loves elephants!
 
Photo by SinE
Text by Steve

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