If you`re in Hong Kong (China) or Vietnam, South Korea or anywhere else in the world with a Chinese diaspora -- it`s time to don that tacky red jacket, gamble until you lose and eat till you burst.
Quang Ba flower market in Hanoi has been named among 13 great places to celebrate Tet holiday, or Lunar New Year, according to a list released by CNN, a US news-based cable and satellite television channel.
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Quang Ba flower market in Hanoi, Vietnam.
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CNN advises travelers that one essential must-have for Vietnam's Lunar New Year, or Tet, is a bunch of flowers and Hanoi's Quang Ba flower market works at a frenetic pace during the festival.
“Shoppers seek out the most eye-catching bouquets (usually peach blossom or ochna integerrima, the bright yellow blossom favored during Tet) amid the whirr and screech of the city's ubiquitous motorcycles, all transporting bright bunches of flowers on their pillions,” CNN wrote.
The sights and sounds mixed with the fragrance of street food makes for a heady New Year sensual overload.
Nuanquan Town, Hebei province in China tops the list, followed by Los Glaciares, Patagonia in Argentina, Studio City in Macau, Ditan Park, Beijing in China, Quang Ba flower market, Sha Tin Racecourse, Hong Kong (China), Central London in the UK, etc.
In Vietnam, Lunar New Year is the most important and popular holiday and festival in Vietnam. It is the Vietnamese New Year marking the arrival of spring based on the Lunar calendar, a lunisolar calendar. The name Tet Nguyen Dan is Sino-Vietnamese for Feast of the very First Morning.
Many Vietnamese prepare for Lunar New Year by cooking special holiday foods and cleaning their house. There are a lot of customs practiced during Lunar New Year such as visiting a person’s house on the first day of the new year, ancestral worship, wishing New Year’s greetings, giving lucky money to children and elderly people and opening a shop.
During Lunar New Year, Vietnamese visits their relatives and temples, forgetting the troubles of the past year and hoping for a better upcoming year. They consider Tet to be the first day of spring and the festival is often called Spring Festival.
Ha Phuong