KL Lantern Festival 2009

KL Lantern Festival 2009 was held in conjunction of Mid Autumn Festival . I am not going to explain the origin of the festival. Click the link to find out. :)

I'm such a goodies bag junkie :) It's one of the reasons I come to the festival at the first place.

What's in the goodies bag?

1 x Mooncake

1 x Lantern

1 x Mineral Water

1 x M-150 Energy Drink

1 x face mask (To Prevent H1N1) but nobody was seen wearing one later, except me. :)

Meet Jenny, a regular at roadraces especially when there's fancy dress category...She handcrafted the lantern herself!

I arrived in Central Market where the event was held around 5:30pm, after a visit to Dr. M's Raya Open House. Malaysia is such a bless country - so many festivities for us to enjoy!

After collecting the goodies bag, I waited for the event to start. I still have around 2 hours to kill. The dragon and lion troupes were busy practising. So, I shot some of these....

Little Simba...

"When I grow up I wanna be the Lion King"

A rip-roaring welcome for the guests!

Lantern with Dayabumi in the background.

Dayabumi Building. The colourful stage for the festival is located outside Central Market.

The press cameramen posed these little kids for photographs. No prize for guessing, the theme is 1Malaysia. :)

M-150 Energy Drink promo girls. Do you feel energized already?

Little fairies? Well, they are not so little....Heheh!

Fireworks.

More firework...

Indian man.

Indian girl.

Malay boy, tired of waiting.....Why do the VIPs always arrive late? LOL!

They finally arrived with a bang! Yup....fireworks in the sky. Not C4. :P

As usual, there way lengthy speech....

There was also the 1Malaysia logo shaped mooncake cutting ceremony....

There was shameless public display of affection. ;)

And there was the lantern parade.....

It was like the circus was in town. Everybody came out to see the freakshow. Almost madness! Photograhers were running and chasing after the our PM. Curious on-lookers jammed up the streets. Bodyguards and the police were trying to push everybody away to make way for the VIPS.....

The lantern parade started at Central Market, passed Kota Raya Shopping Center before turning into Petaling Street and back to Central Market again.

I left Central Market after the parade. There was lion dance going on but it was getting late. I felt very tired as I was out and about the whole day long.

As I was about to board a RapidKL Bus home, the fireworks lit and decorated the sky....What a night, eh?

Here's the video.

See our beloved PM, Dato Sri Najib paraded down the street of Kuala Lumpur with 1big 1Malaysia slogan, 1big lantern and 1big erm...nevermind.

Also look out for the part when the whole procession 1Malaysia stopped and waited for our "beloved" First Lady to change her heels to a pair of more comfortable shoes DURING the parade! :)

ENJOY!

WISHING YOU A HAPPY MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL! :)