Culture
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Nai-Ni Chen Chinese New Year Celebration
As many of you know, this past Saturday was Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year. It’s now the year of the Golden Rat. My family and I usually do a low key celebration. My mom makes different foods in the days leading up to the holiday and we always have dinner on the day of at my grandpa’s house. Then, next weekend we’ll have a get together with some more extended family. This year I got to also attend a New Year’s dance performance/celebration at NJPAC. Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company puts on a show every year at the performing arts center and I was lucky enough to be offered…
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Japan & Hong Kong Vacation Recap
I changed the theme on my blog last night. What do you think of the new layout and look? I’m really liking the change! I do have some little kinks to work out, but other than that I’m loving it. Now that I’ve been back from my Asian vacation for 2 weeks, I thought I’d do a quick recap, highlight some of my favorite things, and share what I didn’t get to do that I want to do in the future. Japan My flight to Japan was a smooth 12-13 hour flight from Newark, NJ to Tokyo, Japan. Japan was amazing! The people are super nice, polite, and helpful. It’s…
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My Recent Trip to The Met
Some people are “museum people” and some aren’t. I am. I love museums. I love history, cultures, art, and learning about all these things. I’ve been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art countless times over the years and I’ll never get tired of it. My most recent trip there was 2 weeks ago for a field trip. My friend/co-worker and I organized the field trip for our 9th grade students. I thought I’d share some snaps I took that day and offer some tips for traveling there with 40+ teenagers. My Tips Wearing a dress is questionable. I wore a dress and this was good and bad. Good because it was…
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Mid-Autumn Festival
This past Sunday was the Mid-Autumn Festival, a holiday that is celebrated by the Chinese and I believe Vietnamese people celebrate it too, but don’t hold me to that! So I don’t really know what people do to celebrate this holiday. All I know is that my family eats moon cakes. There are a lot of different stories as to the origins of this holiday and also various stories that go along with the holiday. What I do know is that the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival it’s always a full moon. And guess what? Sunday night not only had a full moon, but it was a Super Moon. And…
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Saree from Sareez
How’s everyone’s weekend going? My post for you today is a little bit different. Sareez, an Indian ethnic wear website, recently reached out to me and kindly offered to send me a saree! Now, obviously I’m not Indian, but I assume the nice people over at Sareez saw that I have worn Indian clothing (borrowed from a friend) before at the wedding festivities of my friends (here and here) and so offered me this very thoughtful gift! The Sareez website has so much to offer and so many styles. After perusing the site for a while, I chose the Jade Green and Red-Violet Super Net Printed Casual Saree. I sent…
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Happy Chinese New Year
Today is Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year. This year is the year of the Goat or Sheep depending on what you want to call it. I’ve heard it both ways. There are a whole list of traditions and things that people do to prepare and celebrate the new year – way too many to list here and my family only does a handful of them. I thought I’d just share a couple food pictures of things that my family ate (or made in advance for today) last night for New Year’s Eve, which is a mix of typical foods for the new year and things my family traditionally…
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Photo Challenge: Humanity
It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do for the latest photo challenge from The Daily Post. When I read last Friday that the challenge was going to be humanity I started racking my brain for ideas of pictures I have taken in the past that might represent “humanity”. Unless you live in a city or are currently traveling, I think it’s hard to take a good picture for this category in a few days so you’re mostly limited to previously taken pictures. I’ve traveled to a handful of places in the world and have seen various aspects of humanity, but no pictures that I can remember…
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Wedding Weekend Part 1 – Culture
Before I begin, let me just clarify that this was not my wedding weekend, but the wedding of one of my oldest and best friends. As I mentioned in my last post, I went away for the weekend for the wedding. As both the bride and groom are Indian, the wedding was filled with cultural activities, which were especially fun since it is not the norm for me. I decided that my first of most likely 3 posts about this past MDW would be a short one highlighting one of the events. The night before the wedding ceremony was the Mehndi, which is when they do henna on the girls. It was…
