Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

So, last weekend before our delicious dinner at Hui Guan (回館) - which I still highly recommend by the way, they seem to do no wrong - Emily and I went to Dihua Street. In my free time, I've been rambling around their fabric market looking for wedding dress fabrics because hey, what a great reason to get a pretty dress made. By the time I brought Emily along, I had a good working knowledge of where to get what in that area - which street has the most bead and ribbon stores, which sells the most expensive fabrics, where to get funky borders, which stall in the main market has the most Chinese fabrics to choose from...so we managed it in pretty short order.

The tailor I like works in the stinky part of the market next door, but I've had her do stuff for me before and she's done an excellent job, so even though her stall is tiny and the market smells like fish guts, I'm having her do the honors.

I've known for awhile that I don't want a white dress. I have a lot of reasons that I won't get into now (I typed them out and it sounded a bit 'ranty' so I deleted the paragraph). Suffice it to say that I just don't like the white-spectrum (white, ecru, champagne, ivory, bone, cream) dresses that the Wedding Industrial Complex insists we buy. I don't like 'em and they're too expensive, to boot.

So, I chose this:

The main color will be cranberry dupioni (Thai double-weave silk) (top left), with the others as accents, mostly in the wide sash you can see on one of the 2 dresses that I'm using for inspiration.

It's hard to tell but the ivory dupioni (bottom) and vintage Japanese obi match perfectly, the copper is darker and shinier in real life and the cranberry, when in the light, takes on something of a flame color.

For shoes, I want these, though I may also get a pair of heels, since I'll wear them again anyway:

A Day in Meinong

After the King Boat Festival in Donggang ended two weeks ago, we headed to Meinong for the day before catching the HSR back to Taipei. Meinong is the center of southern Taiwanese Hakka culture and is famous for its oilpaper parasols, which are beautifully handpainted and sold in several places around town. At least they would be if half of the old street weren't torn up by construction at the moment.

The food is excellent too - we really enjoyed everything we ate at the well-known restaurant on the outskirts of town (which is actually called "Traditional Hakka Restaurant" but is quite good). We had lotus leaves, cold peanut "tofu", flat board rice noodles cooked two ways, basically all of their famous dishes. All of it excellent.

Below is a set of photos.

The dog and the couch suit each other quite well I think.

For old architecture enthusiasts, Meinong is full of examples of traditional homes. You'll see a lot of them in this post.

Dongmen, the only gate and most famous landmark in town, sits at the end of Yongan Street (the "old street" which isn't very old and is currently partly under construction).

A piece of door calligraphy (this year is the year of the rat). I just liked it.

Something in an old temple.

Dongmen in black and white.

A pretty cornice (?) thing on Dongmen, partially painted.

Hakka woman on bicycle, taken from the 2nd floor of Dongmen.

Old guy watching his front stoop get torn up by construction.

Temple lion.

Three sets of fortune blocks in a temple.

Side column of a traditional house.

Traditional houses (above and below)

Shi Jin Lai is 100 years old and has made traditional Hakka blue clothes since the 1920s. His relative/apprentice here now does most of the work (Shi himself sits in an easy chair and says hello to visitors and is generally celebrated by the town, which sounds like a pretty good deal for a centenarian.) I ordered a blouse because they're pretty, and I like to support the traditional arts.

Cool dragon thing outside of a quirky shop.

Another traditional home - the friendly owners allowed me inside.

Baskets of things (yucca? yam?)

The back of the old Matsu temple (the front is brand new)

The brand-new front of the Matsu temple.

Oil paper parasols above and below - I bought one for my aunt as a Christmas gift - not the yin-yang - I bought some pretty purple...flox or irises. (above and below)

King Boat: The Fiery Finale

That's us after staying up all night. We went to bed at 7am that morning (not long after this photo was taken).

Anyway, here is a set of photos from the final night of the King Boat Festival. In the previous pictures, the boat barely featured because it was barely visible - not easy to see behind a big fence covered with the wishes (written on wooden blocks) of festivalgoers. Instead, there were dangki, tall god costumes and bajiajiang to snare one's attention.

This time around, the boat took center stage. So here goes...the final night of King Boat Festival 2009:

I'm sorry but this balloon is TERRIFYING.

There is something inherently funny about taking one's picture in front of some large thing that's on fire, you see.

Peace!

King Boat I Take II

Some more photos from the first weekend of King Boat. I promise later to sit down and spend some real time making captions and explaining things about the festival. It's really fascinating stuff, but I've just been really busy lately.

I'll also post photos of the second weekend, in which the boat is burned, soon. Tonight, even. I promise!