The Lantern Festival

So the holiday turned out a little bit lack luster for us. As is the way if things at SAU (NongDa) our hopes were at once lifted and then dashed in one definite stroke. When I arrived in Taigu last week the weather was warm, comfortable, even shorts worthy. It was the beginning of a new semester, the North Yard was being re-opened and the dream of a bright and sunny semester seemed within reason for once. We even played frisbee on Saturday afternoon.
Then, of course, Taigu laid a big dump on us. 20 degrees on Sunday, the day of the Lantern Festival, heavy wet snow all morning, it was less than pleasant. But we decided to make the trek into Taigu regardless for the sake of seeing how the town was celebrating. The plan was to find a place for lunch, walk around, take our time, pick some things up at the grocery store and make an afternoon of it. That's when Taigu tricked us again. Whether intentional or not, the restaurants we tried to eat at told us there were no seats available, we had to go somewhere else. I distinctly remember an one open table, though it did not have a table-cloth so I'll give the benefit of the doubt. So this, in the end, meant our only feasible options would be to either eat at one of the outdoor stalls in the snow, or go to DICO's, we chose the latter.
DICO's is like a Chinese version of KFC, but without the slaw, potatoes and corn. Now in December I was itching for dico's at times, fried chicken sandwiches were a welcome departure from our predominantly vegetarian meals, but on day five of my return I had not yet sunk into such a mindset. The sandwich however found it very easy to sink into my stomach and rumble around for a good while, giving me a nice nauseous feeling when we finally made it back outside.
To be sure, the Lanterns that were hung were very cool. There were hundreds of them lining the streets, and they ranged in shape from apples to rabbits to maps and characters. Had the snow not been blowing so hard it would have been nice to actually look up and enjoy them.
But that's Taigu.