The day before the festival, the foreign teachers of Future 2 were invited to a classical concert put on by the Dalian Government in appreciation to foreigners contributing to the city's economy. It's weird being thought of that way, but it was an interesting and enjoyable concert nonetheless.
And of course, there were a good amount of really strange instruments to pierce our ear drums.
The next night was the festival proper, and we picnicked out on a beach by our school, and ingested some mooncakes. Mooncakes are small special cakes flavored (but not filled) in a variety of "exciting" ways. At their best, they are edible enough to enjoy one bite, but for the most part... let's just say I've had better.
We had some Black Sesame, Red Bean, Corn, Date, Pineapple, Peach, Green Tea and other mystery flavors. None were particularly great. Some were rather bad.
It was fun though in the past month or so to see western entities like Starbucks and Hagen Daz come up with their own versions of moon cakes. A bit pricey unfortunately, although I did snag a free sample Starbucks one, and as weird as it was, it was the best tasting one. Although something tells me the Brooklyn Ice Cream ones would have ruled.
Happy Moon Festival!
- Shawn
3 comments:
This is totally random but so my friend Ben worked at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory over the summer since the Ben & Jerry's near him that he worked at closed. He said the ice cream was amazing so my guess is their mooncakes were amazing. But why would Brooklyn Ice Cream have mooncakes in China?
Heh, my bad. I was just refering to Haggen Daz. They're from Brooklyn aren't they?
A bit of a Moon Festival update. I was having class, and my adult students began telling me the story of the "Woman and her Rabbit" on the moon.
Apparantly in ancient China there was a man who was very powerful and may or may not have controlled the world. There was also ANOTHER powerful man. This man gave the first man a pill that gave him special powers. However, his wife ate the pill, but because she was so thin, she flew up to the moon to live there forever as a punishment. And somewhere along the way, she brought a rabbit with her.
Pills? Rabbits? Flying to the moon?
Draw your own conclusions.
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