On Sunday morning, at the crack of dawn the Hong De minibus picked up sleepy Hong De members for a trip to Ararat. Our trip began from Box Hill - Surrey Hills - Prahran - Maidstone - Keilor East - Delahey.  After picking all our 12 passengers, Captain Colin and Co-Pilot Cecilia were ready to head off to Ararat, but not after a safety announcement from our Captain (we think Colin is having withdrawals from not being an airline pilot, but we are glad he is back after being away for nearly 3 years). We had a nice Macca's breakfast before our 2.5 hour trip. The weather was sunny and rainy on the way there, but skies were clear when we got to our destination. We were greeted by a few familiar faces, including Heather Ahpee from Ararat Gum San Heritage and also representatives from the Chinese Consulate - Consul General Mr Shi Weiqiang and Deputy Chen Di. Our lion dance opened the activities for the Viva Multicultural Festival. Our loud music and lion dance gathered a crowd for the Festival. Afterwards we roamed around the multicultural stalls entertaining the crowd. As we headed back to Melbourne, it started to rain again, so we were very lucky with the weather. Photos from the Festival were taken by RMIT student Ngoc Le who is doing an photographic assignment with our team.