Mid-Autumn Festival

Today was the Mid-Autumn Festival. Matt came home from work and we had a nice picnic-style dinner of cheese, meat, bead and wine and then we sampled our mooncake selection. We had bought some of the traditional kind, with the preserved duck egg yolk in the center, and some of the newfangled frozen kind. I preferred the traditional ones, and Matt liked the frozen ones. Of course, I carefully picked out the egg yolk before I ate it! Not that the egg yolk tastes bad, but it really doesn't taste that good either. Trust the Chinese to sneak something salty into their cakes! Our traditional mooncakes were filled with lotus seed paste, which is common in dim sum dumplings and is vaguely reminiscent of peanut butter. The frozen moon cakes were filled with something which reminded me of the "Macau style ice cream" that I had tried on our trip to Macau. I don't really like it that much, it is too dense and more chalky than creamy.

After dinner we were supposed to go to the festival in Victoria Park, but instead I had a melt down about my Dad. I am actually sort of glad that it happened, because I was beginning to worry that I was just blocking my feelings insude so well that I would never feel them. This whole time that I have been in Hong Kong, I have been distracted by everything that is new and different, and if I even try to think about my Dad or about home it is impossible, it is like my mind shuts off. Part of the problem is that I feel like I have to keep it secret from the new people I have been meeting. I don't really want to get so personal with them right off the bat, and I don't want to bring up such a heavy and sad subject when I first meet people. Strangely, Matt and I were having a discussion about the upcoming presidential election and somehow that lead to me crying and a locking myself in our bedroom. So, it was sort of a rough night, but at least I know that I am not some robot that is on autopilot or something. The only thing I am worried about is that all of this is coming out now, when my friends are about to come stay with us. Since they are my friends though, at least I can talk honestly with them.

After that huge upheaval, we finally made it down to Victoria Park at around 10 and the festival was still going strong. There were tons of people crammed onto a field, sitting with their families and burning candles in their empty mooncake tins. I am not quite sure why they were doing that, but I think it has something to do with remembering their ancestors. They seem to do alot of that here! There were lanterns everywhere and the kids were running around with laterns hanging from sticks. There were two huge stages with music and some giant lanterns that were about the size of a car on it's side. The best part is that tomorrow (Wednesday) is a public holiday and so is Friday (because it is National Day). Matt gets both days off from work and he is taking Thursday off too...so we have a 5 day weekend!


Mid-Autumn Festival