New Year festivities in a sea of flowers

A flower festival will be in bloom at the Vietnam Exhibition Centre for Culture and Arts from January 30 to February 5 to welcome the Lunar New Year.
Visitors will have opportunity to watch musical performances, visit gastronomy stalls and join the agricultural products fair. They can also attend a fine art exhibition with pavilions showcasing handicrafts including lacquer paintings, bamboo and rattan products.
The event, organised by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, aims to honour the cultural beauty of the craft villages in Hanoi and the Red River Delta provinces and welcome the National Tourism Year of the Red River Delta and Hai Phong City.
In Ho Chi Minh City, flower markets for Tet (Lunar New Year) will open on February 3 at 69 sites, with the three biggest markets at District 1's 23-9 Park, District 3's Le Van Tam Park and Tan Binh District's Gia Dinh Park.
The markets will close on February 9, the last day of 2012 (according to the lunar calendar).
Thousands of pots of fresh flowers will arrive from Da Lat and the Mekong Delta to meet customer demand for home decoration.
A float flower market will open in District 8 along the Tau Hu Canal, where many sellers will sell flowers from their boats.
Also, the city's annual Spring Flower Festival will be held in District 1's Tao Dan Park from February 5-16. The festival will feature more than 2,000 plants, including bonsai and orchids, and a large number of rare and valuable birds and fish.