Vixxie befriends dragons and unicorns

Vixxie BEFRIENDS DRAGONS AND UNICORNS

It’s become a tradition at Casa Vixxie by now. At the end of the year, I take two weeks off work before Christmas and between New Year, and I enjoy the f**k out of the seasonal festivities!

But this Christmas holiday break was a bit slow. My mum deserted me for festivities organized by my sister. She used to spend either Christmas or New Year with us, but I guess the call of her grand-grandchildren was louder than that of her other adult daughter ^_^. It’s allright, my ego will recover eventually.

In the spur of the moment, I felt China lights 2023 “Dragons and Unicorns” was a viable getaway to repress the betrayal. I keeeed, I’m not THAT bothered.
Especially after finding a special Flexbus connection between both the Zoo’s of Antwerp and Mechelen, that would guarantee late night drives during the event period. I left home as early as the opening hours of China Lights would allow me and I got there just as the sun set. I forgot just how laaaaaaarge that zoo is compared to our compact city zoo in Antwerp! |
– Pro: the mass of people gets divided over a much larger area, and it feels a lot less crowded.
– Also pro: It’s now actually possible to take Instagram-worthy pictures without using your umbrella passive aggressively to keep random photobombers out of your perfect shot.
– Con: Walking hasn’t been going too great lately with wonky knees and tired legs, but I think even with a hoverboard, I wouldn’t even have been able to finish this route!

The parts that I did see however, were absolutely breathtaking, despite the light rain shower. Countless magical creatures came to life and it reminded me a lot of the very first time I visited China lights, as the whole zoo was also littered with colourful, mythical dragons. The six-meter-high smoking red dragon was most impressive, though! But the fabulous unicorns, the little fireflies everywhere, the cute fairies, magical flames, the gallery of stars and the walk through the belly of a coiling serpent… pure enchantment!

Aside of those colours popping right up in your face around every bend and every corner, what I like most about these events are the long tunnels of light. Roofs and arches littered with lampions, fairy lights or other magnificent illumination. There’s nothing like walking through the belly of a serpent, with its body swirling and curling all around you.

While walking past all this splendor and gasping your heart out at all those mechanical installations that make the dragons come to life and spit fire, it’s not difficult to imagine all the hours and hours of work that go into the construction of just one setup. The details are so intricate that the craftmanship is also surprisingly beautiful during the day. Looking at all those pipes and wires behind the scenes, all that comes to mind is “insanity”. But fortunately some people ARE insane, and we get to humbly marvel in their genius.

This year’s designs looked even more picturesque than all previous years combined. Like walking through illuminated paintings. Those details are something else.

So what kind of person are you? The dragon, the unicorn or the fairy ? 🙂

One of the details I appreciated most of all, was the way they managed the fireflies. Small little lightbulbs attached to wobbly light tubes, that danced, waved back and forth in the wind. Imagine that, and then multiplicate that by a hundred. There were soooooo many of them. And even though it may look like a futile detail on its own, I stared at the whole scenery playing out in front of me with my mouth wide open. If this event happened during summer, I’d of probably eaten a whole family of mosquito’s without noticing.