e day. It was Grace's birthday on Thursday. Please see picture of Adam giving her a birthday kiss! Behind her, note the "birthday themed desk set" we gave her. Like a strand of Christmas lights, these birthday blubs are powered via her USB port and com
plete with birthday mouse pad and hat: truly an office treat. Upon receiving t
his gem, Grace's first thought was, "It's reusable!" ... I'm happy I have until June to look forward to the same reward.
Thursday also marked National day- China's 60th anniversary. Similar to 4th of July for Americans, National Day is a holiday (no work- unless you are Brett Peach under a deadline) and loads of fireworks above Victoria Harbour. Since Brett was working, we timed his dinner break to the televised fireworks and dubbed it "National Fish Taco Day" - as that was the tasty dinner that night.
This Saturday was the "Mid-Autumn Festival" or some of you might have seen it in the tour books as the Lantern or Mooncake Festival. Another holiday (2 in a span of 3 days, but not related enough to give us Friday
off work and an extra long weekend.
Mooncakes are traditional treats for this time of year. The originals are very dense pastry filled with lotus seed paste (similar to fig or sesame in flavor...) and they contain a salted duck egg yolk, representing the full moon.
They are tasty in small bits, but seriously the most dense dessert I've tried. They come in beautifully ornate boxes. Modern confections have reinvented the mooncake over
and over. Haagen Daaz (which is mysteriously huge here, by the way) has an ice cream mooncake. The same is true of Godiva and other western stores...they all want a piece of the "money-makin' mooncake."
Brett and I headed off to Plato's wedding first thing saturday. (Picture of us above is from after the beautiful ceremony). It was small and lovely- with more cameras than guests. It was professionally filmed- and the place was full of asians and their cell p
hone cameras! Brett and I were starved so we headed back to that patio on the IFC tower you'll remember from one of my September posts. I ran into the grocery for some bread, cheese, salami and fruit- and we had ourselves an expensive little "western picnic" with a nice view of TST.
We headed home for a while to rest before the big concert.
i've seen tons of mooncakes like that in chinatown. maybe i'll get one some day?
ReplyDeletedesserts/snacks/pastries in chinatown are SO CHEAP. last week i bought this thing called a "chocolate slice," which was a huge chunk of a rolled-up airy angel-food-type-cake with chocolate frosting. hard to describe, but it looked like a big swirl. it was huge and it was one dollar. it tasted good.
the end.
p.s. brett is a retard.