October 1 was National Day, the celebration of the founding of the People's Republic of China. We were fortunate to be here on the 60th anniversary of the founding. Sixty is an important number for the Chinese because, as I understand it, their calendar runs in 12 year cycles (5 x 12 = 60) and sixty is considered a life cycle. There was much excitement and flowers all over the city leading up to the Big Day. We watched a gigantic military display in the form of a parade in the morning. Although the parade took place less than 5 miles from where we live, we did not want to join the thousands (millions?) of people there.
Combined with the National Day holiday is the Mid-Autumn Festival. I have been trying to get a grasp on this holiday, but so far I can only say it involves families and moon cakes. We were given some moon cakes and based on my admittedly western preferences, the packaging for the moon cakes is far superior to the taste.
Maybe we should have eaten the packages.
I was thinking about you and remembered you mentioning this blog on your last Facebook post. It was nice to "catch up" a bit with you.
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