Lead up to Lunar New Year/TET Celebrations

Well the place is going crazy!  The Lunar New Year is a time for family and friends and has an amazing resemblance to our Christmas craziness.  People not only buy gifts for family and friends but they also buy lots of new things for themselves, cleansing for the new year.  People may buy all new furniture for New Year and new clothes, we even got new door mats for our apartments.  Shops are closing and people are leaving town to visit their families in other cities and towns.  There are gifts of Money in red envelopes and huge gift baskets given.  They are on sale all around the city.
Phil and I have had our New year parties at work.  First of all the Caravelle Hotel where I teach English, and as a teacher was on the VIP table, there is a lot of respect for teachers here.  They are put on the ranking higher than a Doctor and just under a government official.

Anyway back to the Caravell, there are around 500 staff and a huge evening with platters of prawns and crabs on each table, a very impressive buffet and presentations from a group that played drums, and did the dragon and lion dances.  There were also presentations from each area of the staff groups.

                                     

                                         Dragon dance to open and lion dance video below

As we arrived we were given a red envelope each that gave us a prize, I got a $5 voucher for a supermarket!  In this picture above are some of the prizes they gave away in a draw for staff.  Major prize was a MOTORBIKE!  Amazing give aways!

Below is a video of one of the staff presentations...I was so impressed, it was very professional for a group of waiters!

                                      
The fruit buffet and another area in the distance, I was standing in the middle so this is repeated the other way as well.  Fruit carved in the platter below, just beautiful.
                                      
                                      

Then to Phil's celebration party at RMIT.  He was met at the door by a man drawing lucky Calligraphy hangings below.

This is one of the girls that catches the bus to work with Phil, she works in the library.  Wearing her traditional Ao Dai.

This is the presentation by staff at RMIT.  Many of the staff had actually gone away when the party was held.  There are no classes currently and it is a great opportunity to travel.  This was on Friday night.  The attendees also got a lucky envelope with $5 in it as well.  Nice touch and also a huge buffet and drinks.
There is so much more to come....in the next post on the blog!