Thought this bike was pretty darn sweet. Just wanted to share it with the world.

The Lantern Festival

The lantern festival / Buddha's birthday was a top-end neat-o experience! It was on most of the weekend, and well into each night. They really went all out in a lot of areas and there was tons to see and do. These here are some dancers doing a dance -and there were also kids doing songs and dance routines and drummers and everything. As I said: neat-o.

The streets were PACKED and they had breakdancers, booths where you could make stuff for free/cheap, a temple to visit, special performances and general culturaltivity. So we went to McDonalds.

Lydia and Nathan getting caught stealing lanterns from Koreans... again.

Hilary making a Lotus Flower lantern at the festival.

Ahhh... the fruits of Hilary's labour.

With the temple behind, hundreds of lanterns were above our heads. It was kinda funny, cuz at dusk they turned all the lanterns on, and then there was this guy who had to go around on a platformy thing checking to see if all the bulbs were working. Could you imagine a more patience-testing job??! It got me wired just thinking about it -so un-zen.

There was one lone tree in the middle of the temple grounds that was the mainstay for the hundreds of lanterns that formed the canopy above. And aren't these girls just so dang cute together?!

This is the temple and inside was a Buddha statue with lots of fruit. It made me want to eat healthier. Don't worry -that soon passed.

Here's our best picture of the parade. Most were colourful, but reminiscent of those drinking and driving commercials. But close your eyes and imagine many people with red lanterns walking down a huge road, and then Ooh! an elephant! and then -by golly- more people with lanterns and... wait, is that... yes it is! another elephant and a peacock that breathes fire! And just behind the animals, wait for it... wait for it... more people carrying LANTERNS!!! It was beautiful and endless -we lasted as long as the fire-breathing dragons (very cool and we'd love to show you but...blurryblurblurblur); it was spectacular seeing thousands of lanterns as far as your eye could see. It truly was a festival of lanterns. And other stuff.

On the way home we met some of the paraders and decided we should be in their picture. Nathan was very much at home with these feathered folk.

...and what religious festival would be complete without an inappropriate touch by Jennica?

Hilary's Classes

Here's one of my (hil's) favorite classes. Not the best shot of them, cuz they're all real cute.

Serious little girls, crazy boys.

Here's one of my other classes. These guys begged me to bring my camera and take pictures, so how could I resist? The girls are a close group, while the boys... well, you may be able to tell yourself from the picture and my strained reaction. Ow my ears!!

Here's my favorite shot. This kid Kevin (English school name of course, on the left) was egged on by a co-worker to put both thumbs up when he saw me and yell, "Rock on!!" just to see what my reaction would be like. Now I keep getting him to do it cuz he's so willing every time, and so cute with his accent, hee hee. Poor kid.

The blossoms of spring!!

A priceless take on some peeps in the subway. We had a picture of men before sleeping on each other's shoulders. Now here's a cute lil' fam shot. Awww!