Saturday, February 12, 2011

Well Wishing Festival in Tai Po

 People catching gold fish to take home as good luck pets.

The Old Wishing Tree. It is custom to write your wish on a piece of paper and then attach it to an orange, which you throw at the Well Wishing Tree and if it stays in the tree, your wish will come true. As a result of all the orange throwing, the original tree has lost many branches and been put on permanent sabbatical by the government. There is now a new Well Wishing tree - a fake tree (below) that will withstand the abuse- and fake oranges are thrown.

Ernst threw one of the fallen oranges, and it stayed in the tree, much to the amazement of the guy on the left, who was on his 8th attempt to get his orange to stay! You can see Ernst's "that's how it's done" expression...

Chinese family lunch - hot pot - a big boiling pot of water in the middle of the table, which cooks the meat and veg and everyone helps themselves. We look forward to trying this out when we have visitors!

Children and dogs are treated very well in HK... a friend of a friend of ours, is a vet in HK and he told a patient to take her dog for a 20 min walk every day for a week. The following week, when she returned, the dog looked even worse and the vet found out that she had been taking the dog for a walk in a pram!! It's not uncommon to see dogs being pushed around in prams and getting VIP treatment. The dog above takes the Christmas cake...

Lady selling organic veg at the market.

 Narcissus plants are everywhere- a very popular part of the CNY festivities.

Can't remember what this was called- didn't have an English name, but it's a gooey, rubbery dough like thing, filled with crushed sweat/spicy peanuts and served on a banana leaf. Not bad... it's apparently very traditional and only made for the Well Wishing Festival.

 And "egg balls" which is like an 'egg ball' shaped waffle, served warm and really yum.

Even Arden liked the egg balls.

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