Mooncake Festival
I may be out of Malaysia but there’s still Malaysia in me which manifested itself in a few celebrations with friends. A couple of weekends back, J and Y initiated a Mooncake hot-pot and herded a few of us ‘eaters’ around a bubbling cobble laden with fishball, fish,prawn, dumplings, vermicelli, mussels, egg, etc.. It was an evening of eating and laughter, mooncakes, pomelos, funny-hornshaped-chestnut and all the things that makes the mooncake festival. Thank you guys!
Conker season and changing weather
The seasons are changing with the descent of the darkness (we’re losing 24 mins of daylight a day) and drops in temperature (averaging about 9-10 C now).
And in participating in a little British cultural tradition for autumn, B, T and I spent the Sunday in Hampstead Heath – a nice parkland north of London for the HH Conker Championships.
Aahh..the magical conker. Conkers have mystified me since my Beano and Topper reading days. In one of the Topper issues, was a story of a magical conker. Gosh –what the heck is that? - wondered my 9 year old mind…..I only found out last weekend.
The conker game is a traditional British schoolyard game where two parties try to ‘hit’ the opponents conker(horse chestnut). There are 3 tries where the one with the most hits wins but the ultimate victor is the one who manages to knock his opponents conker off its string. B, T and I had a go and lo! And behold! I had the magical winning conker:P
Diwali a.k.a Deepavali Feast
Frisbee freaks and a few friends had a great Deepavali celebration in A’s ‘Palace’. R and A went all the way by preparing the house with lights, Henna, Bollywood songs and best-dressed games (A+ for the effort guys!), everyone brought an assortment of delicious food and drinks and Kal provided the games. We even had a bit of Bollywood dancing (S leading the way). T mentioned that it was a little hard to feel the Deepavali spirit when she first arrived in London but this year we endeavoured to make it special with a bang! It was definitely a night to remember (especially when some of us missed the last train home)
