China put on quite a beautiful show Saturday night at the Celebration of Light competition. I went with some of my friends to view the fireworks at English Bay. We were slightly off to the side of the barges (I think there were three this year instead of just two). It wasn't as crowded as I imagined; probably due to the long weekend and the forecast for rain. So we had a lovely unobstructed view for the most part. I love the purple coloured fireworks the best.

I tried to take some decent photos but I never know when to start taking the photo! Perhaps on Wednesday when Spain puts on their show I will be able to take better photos. I captured half the the show on video though so you can watch it if you missed it! Sadly it didn't occur to me to bring a radio so you just hear the explosions and people talking about F-stops. Oops.

After I checked out the HP event, I headed over to Canada Place to see the Illuminaires Lantern Festival. It supposedly started at 5pm but there wasn't a lot going on. The heron puppet came by around 6pm and that was cool. There were musicians and dancers, artists and other tents set up around but there wasn't a lot to see. The last thing I watched was a native band singing while aerial dancers danced overhead along the wall of Canada Place.

A big question of mine was: Where were the lanterns?! I thought that they'd have more lanterns as the sky grew darker but by the time I left at 8:15pm for the Fireworks, I only saw about 5 lanterns in total. It was kind of a disappointment. Maybe all the lanterns came out after I left?! I don't know. This was the first time Public Dreams held this festival downtown. Maybe they should move it back to Trout Lake. I've heard better reviews when it was back there.

On Saturday, the Beat and HP were at Robson square demoing in the HP Touchpad and for each person who tried out the Touchpad, HP donated $2 to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada. I played with it but didn't think it was anything special compared to the iPad. It's bigger and I guess it supports Flash but it didn't wow me.