Temple Fair

It is now officially year of the dragon! The parking lot was littered with last night's fireworks bits in the morning. I wondered if the cars with alarms still had any juice left.



The start of the new year marks the start of temple fairs. Although temple fairs rarely happen at temples anymore, the name nevertheless has stuck. These fairs are full of traditional Beijing snacks, folk art, performances, acrobatics, and useless trinkets and toys.

There are at least 7 or 8 different fairs around Beijing area. We decided to check out Ditan, the biggest one. The entrance fee was 10 RMB (1.7 CAD) per person and opened from 9 to 5PM daily for 1 week after New Year's day. Ditan was packed full of people, shoulder to shoulder. We had to fight our way through to every booth but it definitely felt like new year!

Decorated gore, a folk art craft.




Really not sure what this is suppose to be. We even came across a guy dressed up as this character. Hmmmm....




A sedan ride around the park.




This I found really funny. All the bamboo sticks sticking out of the garage bags were from the thousands of BBQ meat skewers sold at the fair.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Beijing, China

Wishing Grandma a Really Long Life

We are headed to Nanjing to visit my 95 year old grandmother. She not only watched me growing up, she is also the only grandparent I have left. I am excited to see her and do some much needed catching up. She lives in a nursing home and rooms with two other ladies. Grandma is very independent.  She cleans her own space, doesn't need any help going down stairs, and she still reads the newspaper everyday. For being over 90 grandma gets 80 RMB (13 CAD) per month from the government. When she turns 100 her compensation goes up to 130 RMB (22 CAD).

We took grandma out for lunch and took her for a walk around the neighborhood. She is really mobile for her age. Grandma kept on telling me how tall I have gotten. Not sure why since I am in my thirties and had stopped growing long time ago. She even asked about my husband who she met in 2003. Did I mention she has fantastic memory!

I wanted to buy some New Year goodies for grandma. After we dropped her off, mom and I went to check out the temple fair at Fuzi (夫子庙) Temple. Temple is usually the busiest place during the New Year period. In front of the temple, there was this huge golden wish tree. People can buy red ribbon and write down their wishes on it and then the ribbon gets thrown onto the tree. The higher it can be thrown the better chance the wish coming true.




Setting up for new year shows.









After getting rice cake, hairy crabs (grandma's favourite and mine too), and new shoes, we dropped them off at grandma's and said our good-byes. Tomorrow mom and I head for Beijing.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Nanjing, China