I Love Lantern Parade!

The Lantern Parade is an event in UP Diliman held during the last day of classes before Christmas break. The UP community celebrates Christmas with different units, colleges and organizations parading around the academic oval with their respective floats and lanterns.

The College of Arts and Letters's float celebrates Rizal's 150th birth anniversary on June 16

CAL

AME members in their haori parading with CAL

with Red who's parading for the College of Music

College of Music

Gorgeous ladies from the College of Home Economics

UP Tomokai. I like their sakura tree!

UP National Institute of Geological Sciences

UP NIGS's float

Dragonair!

My PI 100 professor, Sir Nilo Ocampo, parading for UP Mountaineers

The College of Fine Arts is a special case though. As far as I know, first and second year students are required to make lanterns, costumes and floats and to join the parade. So unlike other units with only one lantern or float, CFA has several. They're also at the tail of the parade because they make the prettiest and the most interesting floats. I have orgmates from CFA who told me that during December, their classes are usually cancelled because they're very very busy making lanterns and costumes. Sometimes, they even spend sleepless nights inside their college.

Actually the Lantern Parade has several functions. Aside from being a Christmas celebration and a venue to showcase each unit's creativity, the Lantern Parade can also be a venue for protests and for certain causes. It's UP, after all!

The Lantern Parade is also contest, as far as I know. The best float gets an award. The College of Fine Arts, however, is already disqualified in this because obviously, if they did, they'd just win every year. Anyway, as far as I know, the College of Engineering usually wins. I don't know who won this year, though.

Cars designed and made by the Department of Mechanical Engineering for competitions abroad

This year, the College of Engineering's float is inspired by Disney's UP.

Sir Gab and Sir Ji

UP Aggregates in MERALCO-sponsored shirts (MERALCO has been sponsoring shirts for UP College of Engineering's parade for some years already)

I really love Lantern Parade! I like standing at the sidewalk, amongst the crowd, taking photos if I have a camera, sitting down the sidewalk gutter when I'm too tired, and sometimes, eating food from the many food booths around. Although this wasn't the case a few years ago.

During my first year in college, 2006, the Lantern Parade was cancelled due to political reasons. I couldn't understand why my senior orgmates were so disappointed. I wasn't really interested in the Lantern Parade after all. I thought, "They're just lanterns." That year, as far as I know, the Lantern Parade still kind of pushed through but it wasn't a official anymore. In 2007, I didn't attend again. Still, I wasn't interested. Although I managed to see the amazing floats made by Fine Arts students while going home and I was satisfied just by passing by them.

During my third year, 2008, however, I attended. I can't remember why. Maybe because my friends were going so I went too. That year, I had fun! I was amused with the floats, especially by the floats from Engineering and from Fine Arts. During my fourth year, I couldn't attend again because I was very busy with Miss Engineering 2009, which coincided with the Lantern Parade. Although during my fifth year and this year, I was able to attend again.

This year, I positioned myself in front of the Faculty Center. It's probably a habit because I'd usually watch the parade with AME people before. There weren't much AME people in front of FC this year but at least there was something interesting. UP KONTRAGAPI (a CAL-based student organization) setup their instruments in front of the Faculty Center and played.

Many people took photos with this setup by UP KONTRAGAPI

Unfortunately, this year, my camera's battery decided to die right before the floats from the College of Fine Arts arrived. Too bad because there were many interesting floats like the rotating Narda-Darna float and the Gundam float. Oh well.