Asian Culture

Asian Lantern Festival 2025 - Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

Asian Lantern Festival 2025 - Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

We were fortunate that the eighth annual Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Asian Lantern Festival was extended beyond its original August 24th end date, since we had just returned from our second trip this summer. Nine years ago, we enjoyed a similar event in Columbus, Ohio, during the winter (December 30, 2016, Ohio Lantern Festival at the Ohio State Expo Center and Fairgrounds), but we had never attended this annual Cleveland summer event. We put together this blog post to show the good time we had when we visited the zoo with our sons on the evening of Saturday, August 30, 2025.

We remembered enjoying an acrobatic show many years ago at the Ohio Lantern Festival, so we were very pleased to learn that the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Asian Lantern Festival also had live acrobatic performances.

It was fun seeing the lanterns at the time when daylight melts into evening darkness, and the lights become more brilliant. In addition to the lighting displays, we were fortunate to see the elephants, Amur tigers, grizzly bears, and wolves.

The Asian Lantern Festival had interactive displays, and while we were writing this blog post, we learned that there were more interactive exhibits this year than in the past. We had fun standing on sensor platforms and hitting large buttons that activated the displays.

It was great that the festival was much larger than we expected. We enjoyed the event, and expect that we will go again in the future.

We hope you enjoy the photos and videos from our visit, and that they encourage you to visit the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo next year for the ninth annual Asian Lantern Festival.

Asian Lantern Festival 2025 - Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

Blog Date

Fine Print Fair, Korean Couture, Seven Jeweled Mountain: Variety at The Cleveland Museum of Art

I attended the Korean Couture: Generations of Revolution preview.

When I arrived at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the place was hopping! I saw several youth groups arrive, and many people in the Ames Family Atrium enjoying fine prints, or a meal from the Provenance Café. There was so much being offered at the museum, and I was grateful to be there when the museum opened at 10:00 am to spend the full day exploring!

I want to share with you the following three art exhibitions that I knew about when I arrived on Friday, April 26, 2024, plus the immersive experience that the museum's staff recommended I visit:

  1. Print Club of Cleveland’s 39th Fine Print Fair

  2. Korean Couture: Generations of Revolution Preview and Tour

  3. April 25, 2024, blog post: "Africa & Byzantium" Preview - Cleveland Museum of Art

  4. Into the Seven Jeweled Mountain: An Immersive Experience

Print Club of Cleveland’s 39th Fine Print Fair

Korean Couture: Generations of Revolution Preview

Into the Seven Jeweled Mountain: An Immersive Experience

Blog Date

2024 Cleveland and Akron Lunar New Year Celebrations: The Year Of The Dragon

At the Downtown Akron Lunar New Year Celebration, we were given red envelopes contaning candy and information about the holiday

We enjoyed the second day of the Cleveland's Year of the Dragon Lunar New Year Celebration at Asia Plaza on February 11, 2024, and then went to the 2024 Year of the Dragon Downtown Akron Lunar New Year Celebration at Akron Civic Theatre on February 18, 2024. We enjoyed participating in both of these celebrations, and wanted to create this blog post to share with you some of what we saw.

Asia Plaza presents Year of the Dragon Lunar New Year Celebration     Sunday, February 18, 2024 - Year of the Dragon Downtown Akron Lunar New Year Celebration at Akron Civic Theatre

We hope this 2024 Lunar New Year Celebration blog post encourage others to go out and explore more of Northeast Ohio!

Blog Date

PechaKucha Night Cleveland: Untold Lakefront Stories & Announcement of Lakefront's Future

PechaKucha Night Cleveland: Untold Lakefront Stories & Announcement of Lakefront's Future

On October 29, 2023, I started writing this blog post, but I was delayed in finishing it until the middle of December due to another family emergency and some back-end work on my sosAssociates.com website. I am glad that I have now completed this blog post, since the topic presented is part of a long-term trend I have written about in the past. It deals with the important work of improving the City of Cleveland's (and this region's) waterfront and park systems. The plan presented is very long-term, so I wanted to capture today's ideas, and compare them with the future reality.

PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 39 - Untold Lakefront Stories took place on October 20, 2023, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Cleveland's NorthCoast Harbor.

This particular PechaKucha Night Cleveland was very unique!! It first presented the interesting history of Cleveland's Lakefront from a variety of cultural viewpoints, and then showed how the future will build on this past as outlined in the newly updated Cleveland’s North Coast Master Plan.

I also include in this blog post what was recently shared at follow-up presentations that took place after PechaKucha Night Cleveland Untold Lakefront Stories. We are fortunate that so much was shared online from these follow-up events.

The following are the sections of this blog post:

I hope to look back at this blog post in future years after the project is completed and I am standing on the lakeshore enjoying the new lakefront of Cleveland.

Blog Date