Dragon Boat Festival

Well it was terribly hot today around 97. But since I am not working I want to be able to spend lots of time doing all of the things I miss when working weekends. So i wanted to go to the dragon boat festival. However my husband was feeling quite ill. So I decided to take my son and go anyway.

It was down in Lakewood at this park next to a lake of course. It was a free festival that is going on the whole weekend. It's free to see everything, but the cost of the food and the wares can be a little expensive. But I didn't have much cash, so I knew we would have to make the little amount of money work.

First thing I was lucky to find a relatively close parking space next to a house only 2 blocks away. But I think I was able to do that because we didn't get there till around 3:30. That was because I wanted to be cheap about the food, so we went to Mickey D's first and I let the kid play a little bit. I was a little prepared for the weather. I brought a couple of water bottles and D.'s hat and of course sunblock. But it was so I hot all I really wanted to do was get into air conditioning. But as long as we were in shade it wasn't too bad.

They had a stage all set up for different types of performances. The first ones we saw were of martial arts dances and some with swords. Then we went walking around to find the boats. They would only race 2 at a time. And it was kind of slow, so we walked around a bit. But the boats were beautiful. The different booths were giving some stuff away. We got a little motorized handheld fan for D. and a water bottle. Plus some cardboard fans. D. got to color his own dragon masks. And there was this yogurt stand and their mascot was a cow, so D. got a picture with him.


Later we got a little hungry, but mostly just hot. We wanted ice cream, but settled for a Hawaiian shaved ice and some potstickers. It was pretty good. After that I was getting tired and wanted to go home, but I heard some drumming from the stage. They were Taiko drums. It is this large group of people holding onto these huge thick wooden wands for these drums that were the size of a small table. It is a lot of fun to watch. After that was the Hula dancers. But there were men too doing dances that would prepare them for battle. The men would stomp their feet and slap their chests and knees. It was quite impressive especially since while they were dancing they were shaking the whole stage back and forth.


That is about it. These pics are examples and not from the acutal festival I went to. Sorry, but I don't have a digital camera.

Blessed Be.