Lunar New Year with Westfield Santa Anita!

Celebrate the lunar new year at the Westfield Santa Anita Mall, outside at the promenade.
My husband and I stopped by this afternoon around 1 pm (the time frame for this event was 1 – 5 pm). Right around 1 pm the lion dance, as the 2 people in the costume moved to the drums and music. Shortly after was a talented young man who played the Erhu (which was beautifully played). There were performances scheduled throughout the event.
Throughout the promenade are booths from participating vendors that offered tea samples from Bird Pick, the Unilocal booth (free disposable chopsticks and NYX red lipstick with Unilocal check in), arts and craft (kids can make monkeys out of paper bags), calligraphy, and roll the dice game (in which you can win some prizes).
I appreciate that the Westfield mall acknowledged the Asian community and provided this special event in honor of the new year. But my husband and I were not really entertained. We walked through everything fairly quickly but did enjoy the performances.
I wouldn’t make a special trip to come out here, but if I was already at the mall, then I would check it out.

This is a review for the 2015 event. It was from 12pm –4pm when I went and it was a pretty fun event.
I am a big Hello Kitty fan so I was excited to get a picture with Hello Kitty. The line was very long, but that was to be expected since there was a pretty large crowd there. The Hello Kitty truck was also there and it was so cute! I ended up buying 4 mini cakes for 15 dollars. A little pricey for such small cakes but I couldn’t resist how cute it was.
There were also mini raffles and booths that sold food/​drinks. The calligraphy line was too long and moving way too slowly so I did not even bother.
My recommendation for next year is to have a wider variety of booths. I felt like the selection was very minimal. Otherwise, it was a fun way to spend the afternoon.
Oh, and one more thing. There was a Unilocal booth there! Very awesome: D

I came early for the hello kitty food truck and it is cute however overpriced. 3 donuts for $ 10. 4 mini cakes for $ 15.
The lion dance scared a living crap out of my daughter. Both lions came to my daughter as she was sitting on a stroller observing. She freaked!
The freebies and activities were lame and not worth the wait. The cutest booth was from the jap museum featuring hello kitty’s 40^th anniversary but the give away was just a band aid tin box with a hk tattoo inside. They didn’t even give away band aids!
Other lame give aways from other booths, choco coins, flimsy fan, Unilocal reusable bag if u chk in to this, and more junk. The kids craft section was just a coloring page.
It was a festive event nonetheless just not that greaaaaat.

Maybe it’s because we came at 3:00? Because everything seemed lacking, although the decorations were cool and there were booths and even a personal DJ, I felt like they needed more… Food booths (There was like two that I saw)? Or something of the like? Not sure what it was, but the entire feel of the Lunar New year Festival here wasn’t… As festive as I was expecting it to be.
Was at the San Gabriel Lunar Festival before heading over here and that place was def more bumping. It might also be because of the location. This one was held in a mall of sorts while had an entire street to itself.

This is so fun! Located close to home at my favorite mall ! It even had hello kitty incorporated with the event, yay! I went to the mall unaware of this event but glad I found out. Most of the activities are outdoors, so bring sunscreen and be sure to prepare for long lines for any freebies, calligraphy, or raffles. There’s maybe two food type things like tea or the hello kitty café truck. (Exact same truck was at the hello kitty convention). Lots of people wearing red, so heads up if you want to come, it’d be fun to wear red! Some qipao too. There’s also a dragon dance performance inside the mall too. Overall very memorable and it was awesome to see a Unilocal stand. Now I feel like a true Unilocaler! Happy lunar new year ! Year of the ram~

The 2015 event was from 12pm-​4pm today. I dropped by to say hi to some friends who were working at a couple different booths. It’s a pretty cool event. They had calligraphy, small gifts, and of course the Unilocal booth. They also had a Hello Kitty Truck there today. Starting to see that everywhere.
I didn’t get enough time to stay for the other performances, but I did get to see the Lion Dance that was in the center of the mall. Pretty neat and not as crowded as the ones that take up a couple blocks in other citys.

Fun time celebrating the Lunar New Year — lots of festivities…

Went on a whim… not too entertaining in terms of celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year. Year of the horse? Ok. I felt like I was crashing a family party because I was not chinese. Dancing, performances… it was like watching live action advertisements by local businesses.

I wonder why they celebrated so late. No worries. I enjoyed the little show that they had there.
I didn’t find the food truck though. Or I didn’t look hard enough. Idk.

They have fortune telling booth, calligraphy booth, lucky dice game booth and live entertainment and food truck!
But they only have 3 food trucks, which is very limited. They had a Filipino food trick, a boba truck and the bun truck. Kind of pricey though. I wish they had more choices.
The booths and everything was kind of fun, we were able to kill some time there haha

Pretty sweet that Unilocal has a table here. Got to say hi to Nitar in person!
This event is great, catering to the Arcadia and SGV demographics. Lots of performances and booths to visit. Right by the stage is a booth to pick up a red envelope with a yummy chocolate coin and a special offer from Nordstrom. There were also booths to roll a dice (you stand on what side you think the dice will roll onto) to win some Westfield swag, a booth for fortune telling, a booth to get some calligraphy done for you, a booth to spin the wheel for Santa Anita Park swag, and some other advertising various businesses and charities.
I must say, this was a really great use of the Promenade area of Santa Anita Mall and hopefully it also drew some people out to this area that would usually not be here. Parking was super hard to find around 2:30 pm, so I made sure to stay a little longer to make finding a spot all the more worthwhile. Hope this returns next year!