Mooncakes and Magnum Bars!

This weekend was a busy one, but it was a fun one, full of celebration. Sunday was the Mid-Autumn Festival here in China, but the celebrating started on Friday after work and continues through tonight. It's a lunar holiday, so it changes dates each year, but it's always the day of the full harvest moon. There's a traditional tale about a woman who lives on the moon and looks down lovingly on her husband who is still on earth. Or something like that. Either way, the Chinese celebrate by getting together with loved ones and exchanging mooncakes. Lots and lots of mooncakes. These are no moon pies, mind you. They're more like a really dense and giant Fig Newton. They taste "sweet" and come in all kinds of delightful flavors- sesame seed, bean paste, egg, fruit, and even chocolate/peanut butter. They are not my favorite, which is unfortunate because I have received 12 of them. The good thing is that they are easy to re-gift. So don't be surprised if you get a mooncake from me for Christmas :)

This is the sugar/seed/nut/fruit version of the mooncake. Click on it for a closer look.

Sunday also happened to be fellow teacher Shannon's birthday. We celebrated with a great dinner, gifts, games and Magnum bars instead of cake. They do have western style birthday cakes in the supermarkets here, but Peter decided to stick a candle in a Magnum bar instead. What is a Magnum bar, you ask? If mooncakes are a poor imitation of Fig Newtons, then Magnum bars are an improvement on the Klondike bar (especially here, where tasty sweets are hard to come by sometimes). Yum!

Saturday was our day trip into Beijing. We discovered that Mid-Autumn day is not the day to take a train, as everyone is going somewhere. But in spite of the crowds we had a great time getting out of Langfang and hanging with our students Cassie, Melinda, Forrest and Vivian. The trip to Ikea did not happen, but it's not going anywhere anytime soon. Forrest, Vivian, Brad, the Jess's, Melinda, and Cassie.

Our dear friends Helen and Lily. Lily is due in 3 weeks!!