To celebrate New Year's Eve I was invited to the home of a Chinese couple that serves as a host family for American students in China. They were incredibly gracious. My "mom" made a feast that took her two days to prepare. I was able to help her make jiaozi (dumplings), the traditional new year's dish.
They were delicious! However, part of the new year tradition is to hide a lucky dried date in one of the dumplings. Someone has to eat the dumpling with the date in it. Let me preface this by saying that the jiaozi was the last dish served and we made about 4 dozen dumplings. There were only 6 of us eating. I did my best but I eventually relinquished the task of finding the lucky dumpling to everyone else. My efforts were documented though:
On New Year's Day, Leyton, Jim and I went to Coal Hill and Beihai Parks. The parks were overflowing with families enjoying the warm, sunny weather. The highlight of Coal Hill was the view of the Forbidden City from the top:
Beihai was just incredibly gorgeous! It is right on one of the Imperial Lakes in the middle of Beijing. It was refreshing to see so much green. Here is a view of the park when you enter:
Today, we went to Miao Hui (Temple Fair). It is a gigantic New Year's carnival that goes on for a week in one of the temple parks. It was absolutely packed! Forget personal space. Thousands of Chinese families were wandering the park.
The carnival featured games, karaoke, trinkets and crafts, performances, parades, and interesting characters:
The star was really normal-looking compared to some of the other weird creatures wandering around. The highlight of the festival was definitely the food. Every kind of Chinese food imaginable was available. It was the most delicious food I have had since arriving in Beijing. I'm sorry to say I was not brave enough to try some of the food offered. For instance, scorpion, squid, intestine and beetles on a stick:
Happy Year of the Pig!
4 comments:
OMG if that is a pig hat I need one like desperately need one I don't know if you know about your future roommate but I am absolutely obssessed with pigs now if that is not a pig hat then I'm just plain crazy!! I miss you. I must get better at keeping in touch this I will work on! MUAH!
those beetles on a stick...i mean...seriously? wtf is wrong with chinese people?
however their new years sounds totally pimpin. 150 people injured by fireworks? we cant even set off bottle rockets here!
meh, hope class is fun.
caitlin, you are greatly missed but just having caught up with your adventures, it appears that you are having an absolutely wonderful time. i really enjoy your updates :)
awww look how cute you look with creepy star man. listen, all i gotta say is stop being such a woosy and enjoy teriyaki scorpion-and-beetle-on-a-stick. i am SO MAD that i didn't hear my phone ring when you called. it is now my super mission to get a hold of you. please bring the cute piglet hat back. thanks.
siri
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