Happy Moon Festival!

One of the perks of living in a foreign country is that we get to celebrate twice the number of holidays. Today is the Moon Festival (or Mid-Autumn Festival), which is one of the biggest holidays in Taiwan (it's right up there with the Dragon Boat Festival and Chinese New Year). Traditionally this festival was to celebrate the year's harvest. Today people celebrate by holding family barbecues, eating moon cakes and pomelo fruits, and hanging out all afternoon and evening while gazing at the moon (which is supposed to be the biggest it will get all year).


Above: a pomelo

Over the past week, we have received several varieties of moon cakes plus two cases of pomelos as gifts from friends and students. Needless to say, we have been eating pomelos everyday for breakfast and dessert! They are kind of like a drier and sweeter grapefruit.

Another tradition, which Kalan is modeling below, is wearing the pomelo peel on your head like a hat. Not sure where this idea came from, but it's popular with the kids. :-)



Today we are enjoying the day off work. Tonight a friend from church invited us to a moon festival barbecue.

Maybe we will wear our new hats.

-Kayt