Dragon Boat Festival!

So, last weekend was yet another festival here in China and we were able to catch some of the action right down the road from our place. I made a short video, so here it is:

You really had to be there. It was quite fun. You can't hear it too much in the video, but as you can see, the boats have a drum beater and the drums are actually quite loud. And I'm sure you caught my counting error. These particular boats in the video have 20 rowers, so they're quite big.  And to add to this High Definition video experience (chuckle), I've included some pictures with a little bit better resolution.

You should've seen the line for the ladies toilet!

Count'em, 20 rowers.

The number 4 boat in this picture is the team from England.

Go, baby, Go!! or is it Row, baby, Row!

After the big boys got done playing, it was time for the small guys to have a go. These boats have 10 rowers each.

We met up with a Chinese friend & her boyfriend whom we shared lunch with after the races were over. Nothin' like a bowl of noodles after dragon boat races.

And then, after all that fun was over, we had a traditional festival dinner that was put on by another Chinese friend. 

And then just for fun, while we were walking around a shopping area, there was no shortage of wedding stuff. Dresses, photography, hair, you could have planned a whole wedding right there. These 4 women are just modeling dresses. Apparently, this festival is a very, as they like to say, auspicious time to get married. I guess I should look up what "auspicious" means. 

Well, this concludes the Dragon Boat Festival. Now it's back to the grinding stone. We're actually moving up to book 2 in our series, so we're a little anxious about that. Apparently, book 2 has a lot more Hanzi, Chinese characters, than it's little brother, so I'm sure we'll be venting in the near future. Thanks once again for tuning in.

Jason