RECENT ENTRIES |
- • Flooding in Britain - 02.14
- • Sochi 2014 Olympics: Reaching the podium - 02.13
- • The 2014 Westminster Dog Show - 02.10
- • 2014 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in Soch - 02.07

Translate into:
(Hint: Use 'j' and 'k' keys to move up and down)
January 26, 2009 |
Chinese New Year - Welcoming the Ox
Today is the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, met with celebrations and observations by ethnic Chinese and others around the world. This year, we welcome the Year of the Ox, the sign representing solemn hard work and prosperity - an animal that appears aptly symbolic for these difficult times. Millions of people traveled long distances to be with family during this Spring Festival, choking transit systems in China especially. Collected here are photographs of people celebrating and preparing for this Lunar New Year festivities. (35 photos total)

Passengers holding stools line up to buy tickets in front of a railway station in Kunming, Yunnan province, China on January 16, 2009. China warned on Thursday that the mass migration home over the Chinese New Year holiday would be especially hard due to lack of train tickets and told rail officials to "use their brains" to ensure things run smoothly. (REUTERS/Stringer) #

Buddhists rush to stick incense sticks in an urn at a local Chinese Buddhist temple on Monday Jan. 26, 2009 in Singapore. Every year, hundreds of Buddhist believers gather at a temple where they will vie to place their incense sticks in an urn at midnight marking an auspicious start to the Chinese lunar new year. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E) #

Fireworks to celebrate the Chinese New Year light up the sky above Beijing, China on January 26, 2009. Chinese welcomed the arrival of the Year of the Ox with raucous celebrations on Sunday despite gloom about the economy, setting off firecrackers in the streets and sending fireworks into the sky. (REUTERS/Reinhard Krause) #

Artists dressed in Qing Dynasty costumes take part in a performance to worship heaven and pray for good harvests, at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China on January 26, 2009, where the emperors of the Ming and Qing Dyansties would traditionally pray for bumper crops twice a year. (LIU JIN/AFP/Getty Images) #

An inmate waves a balloon during a ceremony to celebrate the upcoming Spring Festival at the Chuanxi Prison on January 24, 2009 in Chengdu of Sichuan Province, China. A total of 500 inmates who behave well in prisons in Sichuan Province are allowed to spend the Chinese New Year at home. (China Photos/Getty Images) #

South Koreans, who fled to from North to South Korea during the Korean War, kneel behind a wire border fence and bow in front of delicacies offered to their parents and relatives in North Korea to celebrate the Lunar New Year at the Imjingak Pavilion, near the border village of Panmunjom, north of Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Jan. 26, 2009. (AP Photo/ Lee Jin-man) #
More links and information
Chinese New Year - Wikipedia Entry
Parties see in Chinese New Year - BBC 1/26
Year of the Ox - Wikipedia Entry