It’s the year of the Dragon. Our Chinese New Year fun started on February 9th, the Lunar New Year ’s Eve, and continued on for the next several days. When I saw my landlord on New Year’s Eve, I told her I was cleaning. Her response was, “cleaning?!” I could tell a good Chinese person would have done their cleaning long before then. Oh well. Tracy and I had the day off. We bought some groceries. She worked in the kitchen for a while, while I cleaned. On the 10th we celebrated with Tracy’s relatives. We went to a resort hotel on the 11th and Tracy made soup on the 13th.
First Day of the Lunar New Year
Traditionally, everyone is supposed to get together for a time of celebration. Young people greet older people saying Happy New Year. May you have good health and prosperity, and then the older people give them red packet money. It’s also a time for people to play mahjong. This is the second year that we have celebrated at my wife’s cousin’s house instead of her parent’s house and it is the first year that we stayed for dinner. They had the food catered and it was really good. We packed about 30 people into a relatively small space. As you can see from the video everyone had a good time.
Second Day of the Lunar New Year
For the second day of the Lunar New Year, Tracy and I went traveling. Apparently that is something you are supposed to do on the second day. There were tons of people traveling on the second. We decided to join a tour group and let them take care of all of the details. We went to a resort hotel called The Silver Crystal Hotel in Mainland. Again we were impressed with Big Lines organization of the tour. The hotel seemed to have everything: buffet, hot springs, beach water front, and an observation deck for viewing the waves and scenery.
Fourth Day of the Lunar New Year – Tracy’s Special Soup
