The Chinese start off on a bit of a wet one

It was battle of the brollies on Grant Street, San Francisco yesterday as hoards of Chinese, and the odd camera-sporting tourist like myself, came out to celebrate the new year with the annual parade. It did seem like a drop of bad luck to have the Chinese don their rain gear on such a festive day, but the rain sure didn't keep them away. There were enough umbrellas to create a tent to cover the entire city.

As the rain didn't affect the turn-out, it didn't affect the humour either. There was a mysterious queue that I came upon on my way up to Grant Street where many booths were set up. I saw many an old lady running down the slippery hilled roadway to join the end of the hundred-plus people queue. My investigations of the tent that the queue led to came to the summation that they were, after all, lining up to spin the wheel. From what I could gather, due to my lack of understanding of the Chinese language, was that if they spun the wheel they would win either a pen, a calendar, or a bag sponsored by McDonalds "for the kids." Say what? If that's all it takes to get an old lady holding an umbrella and her false teeth to run down a hill then I sure wouldn't like to be there if there was a chance to win a tamborine.

I decided to go festive myself and stopped by a Chinese bakery in the heart of the goings-on. I was pounced on immediately on entering the bakery but took my time and came out with two crispitos, a sponge cake and a lotus moon cake. I will admit I had no idea what two of them were but sure why not? The crispitos had a taste of coconut, the sponge cake was a sponge cake, and the lotus moon cake was interesting.

I wandered around the busy street trying to balance my umbrella while devouring the sponge cake in a hungry rage, and trying to forget how wet my waterlogged feet were. After I'd done enough torture to my feet, I topped the day off with Chinese popcorn chicken. Not the popcorn chicken you'd normally expect to get, but popcorn chicken with a crispy goodness flavour and a bit of green added. It came with two long cocktail sticks; fancy!

My bus ride saw me one of three Caucasians among a sea of Asians making their way back to the outer reaches of the city in Richmond.