Gong Hei Fat Choy!

Hello there world!
There's been quite alot going on lately that I've been doing rather than blogging about, so I feel it's time to catch-up.
First, let's talk about Chinese New Year.
For those who don't know, New Year's Eve was Wednesday, the 2nd of February. Now, Lunar New Year is a big holiday here, and in virtue of that A-We got a week off of school (which I'm still enjoying!) B-There were plenty of decorations about the city and C-I made every effort to get to know a bit about the celebrations. Quite a bit of what goes on for the holiday rests in lots of different superstitions. Decorations are around the city, many of which are 挥春 (Mandarin: Hui1 Chun1 Cantonese: Fai1 Ceon1), or lucky couplets, with wishes such as 出入平安 (Wishing Happy Comings and Goings) or the classic 恭喜发财(Gung1 Hei2 Faat3 Coi4,) which translates to something like "I wish you make a fortune." The character 福(Mandarin:Fu2 Cantonese: Fuk1), meaning Luck, is often placed upside down since, as my Cantonese professor explained, the word "upside down" sounds like the word "Arrived" in Cantonese, and thus if luck is upside down, it has arrived.
New year's eve, I headed out with a few new friends to Cheung Chau Island (More on that in another post later), after which my roommate, Andrew, our Friend Suren, and I joined a few of those friends for a proper Chinese New Year dinner at a restaurant in Kennedy Town. Another Superstitious tradition is to have Fish, which, in Chinese, sounds like "surplus", at New Year's eve.
On the first day of the New Year, I headed out to go observe another side of the celebrations-the temples. Wong Tai Sin temple, which I had previously visited with a local friend, was absolutely full of people. It was also very well organized, with police officers and staff keeping an orderly one-way flow of visitors from the subway all the way to the temple and back again. The temple itself was decorated, and filled with people carrying incense.
That evening was the New Year's parade, sponsored by Cathay Pacific airways.
The fantastic New Year's fireworks were held on the second day of the year.

Other than that, I've mostly been using the new year to catch up on studies (only three weeks in and already so much catching up to do!) and eat sweets-another superstition that I read is that if you eat lots of sweets during the new year, you'll have a sweet year ahead.
I don't need to be told twice!