SeeCalifornia.com

While millions of Californians will be celebrating Valentine’s Day and President’s Day weekend events, in San Francisco the largest Chinese New Year’s Parade in America is taking place on Saturday evening, Feb. 15, 2014 at 5:15 p.m. An estimated half a million people or more attend the event which is a once in a lifetime memory you should check out before you die.

Several years ago I happened upon it by pure luck, which is something the Chinese wish for during the New Year. I was in town on business and had booked a hotel room at Hotel Nikko just blocks from the event. I was supposed to be on-call to work that night, taking pictures of a travel group. As luck would have it, I was given the night off and was told to relax. Actually, I was a little disappointed–but not for long.  Meandering out from my hotel to find some great food, there were so many people filling the streets beyond the hotel  that I could barely navigate the sidewalks. When I heard it was a parade I figured, what the heck. I’ll watch it just because it seemed too crowded to go anywhere. What I didn’t realize was that it would be the best parade I have ever witnessed. The costumes, bands, floats, masks, dragons, fireworks, and pageantry were superb.