I saw some stars last night. One nice thing about having a holiday when the moon is full is that every night when you look up at the moon you can see that it's getting closer as the moon waxes. As Zhong Qui Jie(Autumn Moon Festival) gets closer we
see the moon getting fuller(or more full?).
I would say that in my area of Tainan we don't have any houses like in the US. Nobody has a front yard or back yard. Space is just too dear. So the parks are as close as they can get to nature. In the morning before work or school, the park are busy with activity. Qigong, Taichi, calisthenics, ball room dancing all are going on before the heat comes on. Even at night, if the park is lighted the same activities are going on.
On the way to the Wusheng market at night on Saturday night I came across this parade. I think it was a parade by one of the Daoist temples. Their route brought them through the traffic circle in front of the Tainan Train Station. Here we have the Japanese era train station next to high rise office building.
They had their own motorcycle(scooter) traffic monitors to direct traffic. It was a pretty brave to go through at this busy time but nobody got upset, everyone just enjoyed the parade.
They had their own gods in costumes on stills or tall figures. This god with a black face I believe is Matsu.Tainan probably has as many palms as Palm Springs.
Hand carried floats lit up with neon lights,better than a Saint Patrick's parade.
The tail end of the parade, bright colors everywhere. Firecrackers seem to please the gods.
I went to this resturant on a Saturday night and because they were busy they didn't time to bother with me. So I went back on Thursday at 530PM and I was the only customer so they had to help me. This was a night meal of chicken and rice. The small plate has sunflower seeds which goes with the beer. The decore was nice, the tableware was matching, the staff was pleasant(this time) ... But the price was 380NT which is about $11US. It wasn't worth it compared to other meals in Tainan, I'm not going back. It's amazing how relative price sets out expectations, it was still only $11 dollars.
3 comments:
$11 with beer is cheap. You are right everything is relative. Hot or cold, cheap or expensive, good or bad, beautiful or ugly, they are all by comparison. Even with number, it still doesn't say much. What is standard to say $11 is expensive? That is why I want to be a big fish in the small pond. I also don't want to be with rich people that only make me feel poor. I am glad you chose Tainan instead of Taipei. In Taipei, you probably can spend 380NT very easily.
The Moon Festival sounds special. Are you eating moon cakes? Have you found any good recipes for them? The parade you describe makes me wonder if I'll see anything similar in San Francisco for Halloween. Cliff always gets excited about that holiday. I wonder if there are parades. We might be there then.
It sounds like you are learning a good lesson on relativity. Tainan is a great small pond if $11 is expensive for dinner. Are there lots of inexpensive vegetarian dishes, too?
I like temple parade too. Actually, some special dance (Tai ku Wu, 台客舞) has been created from those big God dancing, and it's getting famous. They are trying to attract young people to like those God parade, so, they created the funny dance. I heard they try to promote that funny dance to oversea too. You will be able to able to see it when you see Parade next time. They are so cool, just like God doing disco..haha..
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