Chinese Lantern Festival: The Verdict's In

It was worth seeing.  Not a "must see," but a "hey, that was fun."

Perhaps not worth the full price $19 weekend ticket or $14 weekday ticket + $15 per vehicle to park, but we had coupons for $2-3 off that I picked up from work and as a fair grounds employee, I was able to get us free parking (work plug: you can come visit Texas Discovery Gardens and our tropical butterfly house before you visit the Chinese Lantern Festival...and while you're there, pick up some coupons for the Festival at our front desk).  Besides, Groupon is running a 50% off deal right now.

First off, there are in fact Chinese lanterns, but that's not the whole show.

You'll be greeted up front by some cute silk pandas.  One of them may or may not be "sexy" posing for you.

Hsu?  Is that you?

 And while many displays are made of metal frames and silk lit up, they are also made of other things.  Like the dragon made up entirely of china and teacups.  Those are teacups and not "sake bomb shot glasses."  April might have gotten rather excited and confused.

Or this display of thousands of glass medicine bottles filled with food coloring.  I think it was my favorite.

The Lagoon was transformed.  If you go to the State Fair or hang out on the campus year round, this is the lagoon where you can paddle around the swan boats next to the Bird Show and behind the Museum of Nature & Science (which sadly, no longer lives on the State Fair campus).

 About halfway through the trail there's a food and drink shop to stop at.  We didn't try any food, but I had to stop for a glass of hot chocolate.  It was definitely NOTHING to write home about.  Too small a cup of water with too much of a packet of chocolate powder and the ladies behind the booth may be the kind who definitely ARE talking about you in their second language (who tries to get away with that with Spanish in Texas?!), but I like hot chocolate when looking at lights in the cold!

Brianne organized the outing and she invited our kball friends Simon and April along.  Unfortunately for Simon (that evening), he's Asian.  Which meant he answered and corrected all our goofy assumptions through the evening.  Fortunately for him, he was in the company of 3 awesome girls.  You win some, you lose some.

For example, this might look like ants wearing/taking off with a picnic table cloth, but it's really ants celebrating a Chinese wedding tradition.

These are mythical peaches.  As in, they are not real and they do not really exist that size.  So no, we cannot take a trip to China to eat aforementioned mythical peaches, but if they were ever found and we were so fortunate to eat one, then we would have eternal life.  Obvs.

And this is exactly what it looks like.  The Chinese Lantern Festival ripping off the Little Mermaid Ariel and calling her the Mermaid Lady or something along those lines.  I repeat, that is not Ariel.

And this is NOT Hello Kitty just hanging out.

This is, however, a Longhorn.  HOOK'EM! \m/

And these are definitely bunny heads and hearts on top of a lighted section dedicated to the fungi.  Yes, you read that right, fungi.

We wrapped the night at Deep Ellum's Deep Sushi, which made the evening feel more like a well-rounded evening.

Dallas Chinese Lantern Festival is open every evening (including holidays) from 5pm-10pm through January 6, 2013.  Go check it out if you have the time.