King Boat: The Fiery Finale

That's us after staying up all night. We went to bed at 7am that morning (not long after this photo was taken).

Anyway, here is a set of photos from the final night of the King Boat Festival. In the previous pictures, the boat barely featured because it was barely visible - not easy to see behind a big fence covered with the wishes (written on wooden blocks) of festivalgoers. Instead, there were dangki, tall god costumes and bajiajiang to snare one's attention.

This time around, the boat took center stage. So here goes...the final night of King Boat Festival 2009:

I'm sorry but this balloon is TERRIFYING.

There is something inherently funny about taking one's picture in front of some large thing that's on fire, you see.

Peace!

King Boat I Take II

Some more photos from the first weekend of King Boat. I promise later to sit down and spend some real time making captions and explaining things about the festival. It's really fascinating stuff, but I've just been really busy lately.

I'll also post photos of the second weekend, in which the boat is burned, soon. Tonight, even. I promise!

King Boat Festival (王船節) - First Weekend

So the first weekend of Donggang's triennial King Boat Festival was last weekend (the boat burning, by the way, is this Friday so if you are in the area, you should stop by. The processional with the boat starts Friday afternoon and the burning is at night. Late. Like 1am).

I'll edit and add captions later - for now, it's late so sit back and enjoy some photographs. More to come - I took over 700 pictures in 2 days! Stop by later if you want notes on what these things actually are.