Dragon Boat Festival!!

On May 31st, Taiwan celebrated Dragon Boat Festival, which officially falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. This means we had a public holiday to do as we please!!

The story of Dragon Boat Festival is interesting, although there are many different endings to the main story that I've heard and read about. The festival commemorates a very popular Chinese patriot and poet who used to write poems for the emperor (sometime during the 3rd century). This poet, named Chu Yuan, was considered the emperor's favorite, so he enjoyed a happy and healthy life. But after some time other people became very jealous of the poet's success, and spread many terrible rumours about him. When the emperor heard these rumours, he was outraged and banished the poet. Chu Yuan was so distraught that he committed suicide by throwing himself into the river. The people who loved and admired him frantically raced out into the river in boats to save him. But they were too late. So, instead of looking for his body, they threw rice dumplings (called "zong-zi") into the river so that the fish would eat the dumplings and not the poet's body.

Zong-zi are sticky steamed rice triangles, with various fillings, wrapped in bamboo leaves. The fillings can be all sorts of things like beans, dates, sweet potato, meat, nuts etc.


I'd already decided that I absolutely had to go to Lukang to watch the boat races a while back, as I've been in Taiwan for 3 years-worth of opportunities and had just never been until now. And I'm so glad I went!! We had a really fun day wandering around, watching the boats, tasting all sorts of delicious culinary delights and checking out the fun streets in Lukang. The weather was very strange, perfect for sunburns, and the day ended up a weird mixture of rain (pouring at times), hot hot hot sunshine and overcast cloudy grayness. (Martin has a particularly lovely sunglasses and farmer's tan now!!)

Feel the love :)


Aaaargh I'm being eaten...


Being towed to the starting line...


The race is on!!!


Would you wear this t-shirt???


Happy friends.


My cool flower.


There was a lot of weird and wonderful food on display at the various stalls scattered around the field, and we tasted many things, including rather delicious Malaysian satay chicken and Turkish ice-cream. Other things that we found, however, were not as mouthwatering!

Here's a mushroom growing in a bag (actually the fried mushrooms were delicious!!)


Lots of meat... please note the scarily small chicken on the left, I couldn't believe they would just cook a whole baby chicken like that!


We did a lot of hanging out near the edge of the river, where we found a lovely pile of rocks to sit on and just spent time chatting, away from all the crowds and loudspeakers by the stalls.

Martin trying to catch a fish!


Me.


Pretty bridge.


After about 3 hours of being there, we finally found Duncan! He'd taken the bus to Lukang from Changhua and another bus from Lukang to the river. After he'd feasted on a few things and watched a race or two we decided to drive back to Lukang and wander the streets a little. By this time the rain was coming down in sheets and we could barely see each other!! But we were not to be deterred... we donned our raincoats and got on the bikes. Martin and I were on his bike, and Duncan and Katie were on Miranda's little 50cc scooter that Katie had borrowed for the day. What a hilarious ride!! Miranda's bike's brakes sounded dreadful... they squeaked and squawked all the way and caused many a head to turn!!

Duncan was by far the wettest out of all of us!


Waiting in the rain...


In Lukang we found a vendor selling rice powder cookie things with a peanut filling - this is a picture of them steaming. He filled up the wooden cup with rice powder (or something like that), put a spoonful of peanut shavings in the middle, put its little lid on and then placed the whole thing on top of one of the 2 poles you can see. Totally delicious!!!


Final product!


Showing me their own personal rice cookie thing... mmmmmm...


Some fans in a lovely fan shop we found.


The beginning of the fan that I bought - the man painted a temple in Lukang.


The narrow back streets of Lukang are filled with beautiful little houses like this one - ancient Taiwan for all to see.


Lanterns hang in the streets as we leave...