Celebrasia 2011: Year of the Rabbit

Before the sun has even started to peek over the horizon on Jan 29th, Bryan, Andrew, Tomomi, Jenny and Jen met at LAX to get on their flight to Chicago to perform at Northwestern University's Celebrasia. Celebrasia is an annual program that is hosted by Northwestern's own Taiwanese American Student's Club and the Chinese Student's Association to celebrate the lunar new year. This year, we were joined by other student performers and acts such as Chicago's Seven Stars Lion Dance, Youtube singer Jennifer Chung, the Shanghai Restoration Project and the Season 5 winners of America's Best Dance Crew -Poreotics.


After landing in Chicago, we drove straight to the Midwest Buddhist Temple to pick up some borrowed drums and also met up with Ryan who helped us out all day...thanks Ryan, you're awesome!! From the temple, we headed directly to Northwestern for our sound/tech rehearsal and then it was showtime! The crowd was jam packed and had great energy all night. We want to thank Tiffany Chang, TASC and CSA for bringing us out and to all the students for their hard work and great hospitality.


The next morning, we had some free time before out flight back to LA, so Andrew, Tomomi, Jenny and I decided to drive out to downtown Chicago to do some sightseeing. First we visited the Willis tower and took an elevator 103 floors up to their Skydeck. On the Skydeck, they have a glass box called the "Ledge" that extends about 4 feet out of the side of the building. We all took turns standing on the ledge and from 1,353 feet up in the sky, enjoyed the vast horizon and view of downtown Chicago. After Willis Tower, we walked around the streets of Chicago for a while then made a stop by Millennium Park to visit the Cloud Gate sculpture before heading back to the airport. I was told that it was fairly warm for Chicago weather while we were there (and it seemed that way as we saw students walking around in shorts and shirtless on campus), but thinking back to our frozen, shivering bodies while walking through the city, it was apparent to me that you can't get acclimated to colder weather like that in just 2 days =)


Thank you again to Northwestern's Taiwanese American Student's Club and the Chinese Student's Association for bringing us out and thank you to Chicago for a great time. Can't wait to visit again!