Happy mid-Autumn August Moon Festival 2008

It's that time of year!

If you want to read more about this festival check out Wikipedia. The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month which, this year, is September 14th.

I LOVE mooncakes! I love the creamy lotus filling, I like them with or without egg yolks (although growing up I was always reminded if we tried to bring in anything with egg yolks through customs they would be confiscated... but stores still sold egg yolk ones), hate the nut ones, and well... I just savour them (since they are pretty expensive for their size!) but sometimes I'm just greedy and eat a whole one in one sitting (guilty pleasure...). Growing up we were reminded time and time again how expensive they were and my mum or dad would cut each one into 8 tiny pieces and it would last us a few days or so, and I'd have to fight my sister for the last piece! I used to keep and collect the pretty metal tin packaging too...

Instead of posting my own photos I decided to find a few I liked on Flickr...

1. Vietnamese pig and piglets, 2. Untitled, 3. My Hand-made "HELLO KITTY" moon cake, 4. Assorted Mooncakes, 5. Taiwan's Ten Ren Tea Moon Cakes 天仁茶月饼 [喫茶趣], 6. Wing Wah moon cake, 7. 四黃白蓮蓉月餅 from 榮華, 8. 08.08.07 - Hello Kitty Mooncake, 9. 基隆詠盛餅店蛋黃酥斷面 Yolk Moon Cake


and more!

Check out THESE amazing mooncakes!

Recipe on how to make chocolate mooncakes!

Random photos

Random photos from last Thursday

Sushi and tempura I bought from Freshmart (approx 95 RMB worth). I didn't have a proper platter so I put it on our cutting board. It looks pretty good even if I do say so myself!





It was a full moon I think, or almost. We've been blessed with beautiful blue skies and sunshine every day (it rained yesterday, Saturday but apart from that it hasn't rained in ages!). This is the view out of our living room window, taken about 6pm:

Lantern festival (Yuanxiao jie 元宵节/節)

I can't believe I almost forgot to mention this.

Yesterday was the last day of CNY festivities. Although the public holiday was for one week, the actual time period of CNY is 15 days, ending yesterday 21st February.

I feel a little ashamed to say I didn't even know about this or what it's called. I don't recall ever learning about it :( All I knew was that last night the fireworks started up all over again but given I had seen and heard them so many times already I didn't even get up to look at them (I was kind of sick of them now to be honest)! I did have a quick look out the window later though, and noticed that the moon was very high, full, big and bright. Coincidence? I think not! ;)

From Wikipedia:

yuánxiāojié) or (Yuanxiao Festival), also known as the Shang Yuan Festival (simplified Chinese: 上元节; traditional Chinese: 上元節; pinyin: shàngyuánjié) is a Chinese festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunar year in the Chinese calendar. During the Lantern Festival, children go out at night to temples carrying rabbit-shaped lanterns. The 15th day of the 1st lunar month is the Chinese Lantern Festival because the first lunar month is called yuan-month and in the ancient times people called night Xiao. The 15th day is the first night to see a full moon. According to the Chinese tradition, at the very beginning of a new year, when there is a bright full moon hanging in the sky, there should be thousands of colorful lanterns hung out for people to appreciate. At this time, people will try to solve the puzzles on the lanterns and eat yuanxiao (glutinous rice ball) and get all their families united in the joyful atmosphere.

Well there you go.. the things I learn by living in China and reading Wikipedia!