At Victoria Park the night after the Mid-Autumn Festival

Visual treats abound at Victoria Park this time of the year :)

 

My favorite display of this year's mid-Autumn Lantern Carnival

 

And the Peach Blossom Wishing Tree was pretty cool too... :b

 

My mother arrived for a visit yesterday (complete with a mooncake gift) and my plan for the evening had included our taking a stroll through the section of Victoria Park where lantern displays had been erected for the Mid-Autumn Festival.  But after last night turned out to be more rainy than we would have liked, we postponed checking out this year's Mid-Autumn Lantern Carnival by some 24 hours -- and were rewarded not only by the carnival still going on (through to the end of the week, in fact) and being on the enjoyable side but, also, with glimpses of the still largely full looking moon in what's still a pretty cloudy sky.

 

Each year that I've been to view lantern displays at Victoria Park around what's supposed to be mid-autumn, the weather's felt more summery than autumnal.  Something else that I now know to expect is to see some particularly unusual -- even whimsically -- shaped lanterns on display; with past years' efforts including those shaped like the 2008 Beijing Olympics' fuwa mascots, Taoist deities (like Na Cha the Great) and even traditional Hong Kong snacks like curry fishballs on sticks!

 

This year's contributions included cheongsam-shaped lanterns and a peach blossom wishing tree (which seems to be a non-traditional amalgamation of two traditionally prized plants) along with a bevy of animals, including pandas, other bears and lots of rabbits.  Upon seeing all those rabbits, my mother wondered aloud if she was mistaken that this year's actually the year of the rabbit rather than the chicken and/or rooster.  

 

After I hastened to tell her that the rabbits at the carnival represent moon rabbits rather than those from the Chinese zodiac, I got to realizing that -- unlike last year, when there were indeed a lot of monkey-shaped lanterns that made it really easy to remember that it was the year of the monkey -- my mother did have a point in noticing that chicken and/or roosters were not very well represented at this year's lantern carnival.  Does anyone have an idea why this is the case?  If so, do please share your thoughts on the matter! :)