mid-autumn family BBQ

Tomorrow is Taiwan's mid-autumn festival - when the moon is at its biggest all year. There's a whole big story behind the festival, but today it is basically turned into a national BBQ-day(s), where everyone sits outside their houses - along the streets - with little grills, BBQ'ing the evening away. Story has it that this tradition arose because everyone is supposed to hang out outside and look at the moon, and since they're already outside what better excuse than to BBQ? It's a food-loving nation, seriously.

I remember my first year here, I went with a group of bboy-friends to the beach, and then we headed to one of their homes and BBQ'ed. I had totally missed the fact that it was a holiday, and thought it was just a regular get-together-and-BBQ like is so common in Hawaii (and so many other places), and on my scooter ride home through that part of town, seeing practically a grill or two outside every door, with groups of people squatting/sitting around chatting, eating, drinking and having a jolly good time, I thought to myself: Now this is my kind of neighborhood! thinking it was a regular occurance. Little did I know this was going on throughout the entire country. In fact, it wasn't until the following year that I actually figured it out.

Anyhow, we started a day early - today - because Judge's dad is heading back to China tomorrow. So that we could participate too, we did it here at Judge's parents' house, and were in total 17 adults and four kids, all family. From Judge's perspective:

• Grandma, 3rd great uncle, a great aunt and her husband, second uncle and aunty and their daughter, 3rd uncle and aunty and their two kids, Judge's parents, my dad, Judge's sister and her two kids, and us four.

It's not often they all get to gather together anymore, so it was a really great evening, full of good eats and laughter. Plus, Leona and her cousin Owen love playing together (Zoe too, but she's just under a year and a half so not quite up to speed and agility to be able to keep up all the time), and totally get along, which is super great for me and Judge as well :P

Don't have any pictures from after everyone had arrived, but:

[The sky before the lighting and thunder - thankfully no real rain though!]

[3rd great uncle smoke-roasted two chickens]

[my dad loving the comb and head

he surprises Judge's relatives constantly with his enjoyment of all the 'strange' eats here]

[Leona and Eliana's cousins sporting pomelo hats - a must-wear during for festival]

[Eliana and her great-grandmother]

Side-note: Man I can't wait until I buy a new phone with a better camera (will be doing so soon). iPhone 4's sucks! And taking out my canon, transferring pics to the computer, editing them and uploading is just too much work at the moment. So sad. Have to make due with these sub-par quality shots for now.


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