On Saturday the weather was beautiful, and festival season has begun in the St. Louis area, so we spent the afternoon at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Chinese Culture Days!

We started at the Cohen Amphitheater, where we saw the “Ethnic Charms of China” demonstration, which included various forms of dance, martial arts performances, and lions and dragons:

We stopped by the Chinese Garden, where we saw a demonstration of a traditional Chinese wedding:

We saw a dragon dance around the Central Axis reflecting pools:

And we saw a Chinese Square Dance, which is VERY different from American square dancing!

The highlight of the day may have been the grand parade, though. We got to see dancers and drummers, lions and dragons, acrobats and martial artists, all in beautiful costumes as they walked by, some performing as they went!

Before we left, we took a walk through the (extremely busy) food court…it looked and smelled delicious!

This was our first visit to Chinese Culture Days, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be our last…it was a lot of fun!