Chinese New Year

Bellagio Celebrates Chinese New Year With Garden Exhibit

February 3 marks Chinese New Year. This year is the Year of the Rabbit and Las Vegas' Bellagio hotel is getting in on the celebration. Bellagio's Conservatory & Botanical Gardens has been turned into a serene sanctuary guided by the ancient practice of Feng Shui that is on display now through March 5.

The centerpiece of this exhibit is a 35-foot Chinese junk boat with a 38-foot mast inspired by traditional 15th century fishing vessels. The boat was created using teak, mahogany and cedar by Daniels Wood Land, Inc. – which is best known for building full-scale replicas of The Black Pearl for Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie franchise. The boat is surrounded by a zig-zag bridge and leads to a wing-tipped Ming Dynasty-styled gazebo.

A 12-foot rabbit with a coat comprised of more than 4,500 live sedge plants, watches over eight babies at play within a forest of bamboo trees and Taihu rocks. An 18-foot-tall Chinese God of Prosperity is found amidst gold leafed I-Ching coins and is flanked by two Ming Dynasty-styled dings, ancestral vessels that protect against bad fortunes. There are also seven replica Terracotta Warriors, covered in crushed walnuts and ground carrot seeds, accompanied by a horse-drawn carriage. The original Terracotta Army was buried with the First Emperor Qin in 210-209 BC in the Shaanxi Province and later discovered in 1974 by a group of farmers digging a well. Oversized red silk Chinese lanterns throughout the Conservatory add to the auspicious nature of the exhibit.

The rabbit serves as a symbol of fortune and longevity. Those born in the Year of the Rabbit tend to be lucky, articulate and ambitious.

Tags: bellagio, bellagio hotel and casino, Chinese New Year, Las Vegas, las vegas strip, year of the rabbit

Limited Edition Chinese New Year Memory Cards

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Gadgets

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year and, in honor of the fact that it is the year of the pig, PQI has released two limited edition Chinese New Year USB Memory Cards. The 2GB card has a peony surrounded by "fortune pigs" and the 1GB card has a single fortune pig. Each gold card is just 3mm thick. Only a total of 1,500 cards - 1000 units of 1GB and 500 units of 2GB - will be produced. The cards, both the 1GB and 2GB versions, will retail for $510 each.

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Tags: chinese new year, memory card, pig, usb

Luxury Ingredients Make A Pricey Chinese New Year Feast

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

The ultimate meal for Chinese New Year has been created at the Lao Zhengxing restaurant in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou. CNN reports that the menu includes lobster cooked eight ways, sharks' fin in a brown sauce, stewed bird's nest sweetened with apricots and braised abalone. The meal costs 198,000 yuan ($24,500) and the price is so high because the owner collected many of the rare ingredients and it will take years to collect them again. They have enough to serve 20 to 24 people but so far there has only been one taker for the banquet.

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Tags: chinese food, chinese new year, ChineseNewYear, shark's fin