Lantern Festival

Lantern Festival this year falls on March 4. It's a national carnival to welcome Spring after a long dark cold winter. The other two major traditional festivals in Chinese are Spring Festival and Mid-autumn Festival. The celebrating activities consist of three parts: the daytime Huahui (lively and jolly celebrations), the nighttime Denghui (display of various lanterns) and eating Yuanxiao (sweet dumplings made of glutinous rice flour).

Huahui is held at daytime and mainly on famous streets or in big temples. It's made up of various entertainment activities including yangko opera, stilt walking, landboat rowing and the most fabulous lion dance which, accompanied by the clamors of gongs and drums, always gathers the most spotlight on the site.

Denghui is held at nighttime and it's where Lantern Festival gets its name from, a festival to appreciate various lanterns. Lanterns will be made into various shapes, the lotus flower, the aniseed, the dragon and so on. Yuanxiao to Lantern Festival is the same as dumplings to Spring Festival. It is sweet dumpling made of glutinous rice flour. Traditional Yuanxiao stuffings mainly are hawthorn white sugar, mashed Chinese dates pine nut and sweet bean paste, which are enriched in modern society to include cream, chocolate and so on. Yuanxiao is available at various supermarkets. Long cherished Yuanxiao brands include Daoxiangcun, Gongyifu, Yixinfu and so on.

**More on Lantern Festival photos & facts

** Source from China Daily

Leisure walk on one Saturday morning

We both woke up a bit late today, really late round 11am. Clear day but still too cold to get out and do stuff. Yeah, like there're anything to do here anyway. I wasn't in the mood for preparing breakfast, so we'd just pop by the hotel for a quick lunch.

The weather was crisp cold but still slightly bearable to go for a short walk. I sort of excited to try out the new camera. And there're quite a few photo ops on the way - like this funny looking curly cabbage-look-alike that had been planted since the beginning of winter. Not edible apparently, just part for decorative purpose in the parks. I think they look amazing this morning, especially with last night's drizzle, all dotted beautifully in strands of pearl-like morning dews. They look amazing! Anyone knows what it's called, pls let me know.

We took the back alley of the hotel which is a local residency area. Farmers mostly, have massive vegetable plantation in front of their houses. These people really know what they're doing, the vegetables look absolutely delicious!

And so the world disappears....

Woke up this morning to find the world had vanished. The fog was so thick, we could barely see anything out there. Still freezing cold, below 5 degrees C. Should be getting a bit warmer later today, but still won’t make me want to go out and do stuff. Gotta get up to get brekkie ready for B. See ya later!!