Lunar New Year prayers and festivities usher in the Year of the Horse

BEIJING (AP) — People are marking the Lunar New Year on Tuesday with prayers, fireworks and festivities.

The activities ushered in the Year of the Horse, one of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, succeeding the Year of the Snake.

The Lunar New Year is the most important annual holiday in China and some other East Asian nations and is celebrated outside the region, too.

Temple crowds at midnight in Hong Kong

Incense smoke wafted into the air at a temple in Hong Kong where people line up every year to make wishes for the new year at midnight.

Holding up a cluster of incense sticks, many bowed their heads several times before planting the sticks in containers placed in front of a temple hall.

Fireworks light up skies in Vietnam

Entertainers in Vietnam sang at an outdoor countdown event before multiple fireworks shows at several cities in the Southeast Asian nation, where the festival is called Tet.

Light shows lit up bridges and skyscrapers as the fireworks went off and crowds clapped in rhythm to live pop music performances.

Chinese street fairs in Moscow

People sampled Chinese cuisine from stalls and strolled along snowy streets decorated with red lanterns and dragons as two weeks of events got underway Monday at various venues in the Russian capital.

The third annual Lunar New Year celebration comes at at time of warming relations between China and Russia — ties that have frustrated many European governments because of the war in Ukraine.

A temple bell rings 108 times in Taiwan

The solemn peal of a temple bell rang out 108 times — an auspicious number — as people flocked to the Baoan Temple in Taipei on Tuesday morning.

They lit incense sticks, bowed their heads and left offerings of colorful flower bouquets on outdoor tables on the temple grounds in Taiwan's capital city.