Celebrate the Lunar New Year at the Sofia Hotel
Celebrate the Lunar New Year at the Sofia Hotel
Photo: y6y6y6/Flickr
The Year of the Dog is unfolding, and San Diego turns out to be a wonderful place to usher it in! Mark the occasion with a happy stay at the Sofia Hotel here in Downtown San Diego, and you’ll have your choice of two fine Lunar New Year cultural parties right at your fingertips…
The San Diego Tết Festival
Tết—aka Vietnamese New Year—welcomes in spring with great pageantry. The full name of the festival is Tết Nguyên Đán, “Feast of the First Morning of the First Day,” and San Diego’s Vietnamese-American community puts on a fabulous one!
This year’s San Diego Tết Festival takes place February 16th through the 18th at Mira Mesa Community Park, about a half-hour north of downtown. The Vietnamese American Youth Alliance puts on the festival, which ranks among the very biggest celebrations of Vietnamese New Year in Southern California.
Free and open to one and all, the San Diego Tết Festival marks the holiday with fireworks, live entertainment, feasting, and all-around merrymaking. Highlights include multiple rounds of traditional Lion Dancing, martial-arts exhibitions, cooking demos, Vietnamese folk music, and the long-running Miss Vietnam of San Diego Pageant, which takes place at 6:30 PM on Saturday the 17th.
The festival includes other competitions as well: a dance contest at 8 PM on Friday, a pho-eating contest on Saturday at 5:30 PM, and Sunday afternoon’s “Golden Voice” karaoke sessions—not to mention the thoroughly un-missable Puppy Costume Contest that day at 3:30 PM.
San Diego Chinese New Year Fair
Just a stone’s throw from the Sofia Hotel, meanwhile, the San Diego Chinese New Year Fair will be ringing in the Year of the Dog during its 36th edition on February 24th and 25th at 3rd Avenue and J Street in downtown’s Asian Thematic District.
Run by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of San Diego in cooperation with Silk Road Productions, this hugely popular festival also includes plenty of Lion Dancers (and Dragon Dancers) and martial arts as well as lantern-making demos and lantern parades, the Asian Story Theater, acrobatics, and music.
All this live entertainment comes supplemented with lots of delicious food as well, so be sure you’ve brought your appetite along in addition to your festive spirit.
Celebrate the Year of the Dog at the Sofia Hotel
Both the San Diego Tết Festival and San Diego Chinese New Year Fair are awesome celebrations not only of the Lunar New Year itself but also our city’s deep-seated multicultural heritage. Come join the fun with a getaway to the Sofia Hotel!