Celebrating the Moon!

September 29th was the Moon Festival! The Moon Festival is one of Taiwan's biggest holidays. This is the weekend where they celebrate the full moon by having big barbecue's with family and friends! I had two barbecue's planned for the weekend with my family. One with Rotary and one with my host family's friends.

The first was a mid-day lunch barbecue with Rotary! Due to rain, the barbecue was moved inside to a Japanese restaurant.  Usually the barbecues are outside in parks or in front of businesses. At the restaurant we all share a long table and we sit on our butts to cook and eat.  We all sat and shared small little grills to grill endless amounts of meats, fish, and vegetables. It was a lot fun to embrace in this tradition and was so delicious as well. After the meal, I felt as though I was about to explode from eating so much! I will only have Moon Festival once during my exchange, so I am glad I experienced it and that there is a little thing called exercise. Ha!

My second barbecue was at my host family's freinds home in the evening! We headed straight from the first barbecue to this one. I told my host parents in the car ride over that I would surely not be eating at this one. They laughed! I tried a few more different foods at the 2nd bbq, but really could not force anything else down. The best part about the night was I was able to see the full moon from the deck. The sky was very cloudy and rainy.  But, for about thirty minutes we had clear skies. The moon was big, bright, and FULL!

My first Moon Festival was great and I am so thankful and happy I was able to experience it with all the great Rotarians! I spent Sunday running errands, but most of all, trying to make my body feel a little better after all of that food! Thanks for a great weekend Rotary!

Anna :)