Wearing my comfortable high heels and beige halter dress, I looked ready for a picnic. Instead, I was going to a BBQ near the Shida FenPu (heck, I thought the venue was at the Shida Park which was a different area altogether) and I was overly dressed for it.

Hahaha, oh well, you can never lose if you looked good. No matter — like any activity, I had tons of fun.

What was different about this experience?

Well, first, we started at freaking 2:00 pm where it was too hot around the area! I was at the shade most of the time but made sure everyone was well fed by encouraging the BBQ volunteers. Here’s my friends BBQing outside the shade and sweating like bullets:

There were a lot of charcoal, grass, chunks of meat and an eclectic group of old and new friends. Overall, it was a pretty wholesome party serving mouthwatering meats, onion-green pepper-meat kebabs and ears of corn. The picture doesn’t look much but trust me, we were so stuffed after we were done:
This year, Taiwan celebrated the mid-autumn festival by giving us 4 days off (including the weekend). Most Taiwanese celebrate by going back to their hometown or meeting up with friends and BBQing in the park or any open areas. Check out the separate groups of people BBQing around the area come late afternoon:

Afterwards, the entire place was just SURROUNDED by people! Jeez, it made me half-glad we were early so that we got a choice spot by the shade. There were even some fireworks lighted come evening so it was a cool experience altogether.

What made the BBQ so much fun was I also made some new friends:

There was ZuoHao, a half-Taiwanese/half-Malay homosexual who speaks in a quasi-British accent. He’s such a hoot and doesn’t give a damn what other people think about him which make him even more hilarious! “I wouldn’t date him because he’s fat,” he quips as he points to a surprised acquaintance during a BBQ.

I also hit it off well with this 22-year old college student (!) who looked like a US Presidential Hopeful. Despite his bad boy demeanor (my friend said this guy liked to talk sh*t), we spent most of the day conversing about life, history and politics. I’ll see him tomorrow climbing so that should be interesting. Hahaha, so young yet a tad mature than his age! I can’t imagine just how open he is.

There were also some guy-to-guy action that happened — reminiscent of the Lady and the Tramp spaghetti scene:
Just love how liberal people are nowadays! And how game they all are in good fun. 🙂

I got home tired, sweaty and smelly — but happy as well. There’s nothing better than spending the day with good food and even better friends.

Overall, it’s been a great long, relaxing vacation.

Last Friday, I had a lovely girl’s night out watching tons of DVDs and enjoying being a girl. I had the great luck of savoring AT’s cooking and that was yummy.

Saturday was my friend’s go-away party and so had a lot of fun at Barcode and Room 18 where we sipped some nice cocktails, bumped into a few good friends and danced the night away.

Sunday was a trip to Ikea Taoyuan and some bonding with one of my fave people in the world. I’ve also did some retail therapy and bought 2 pairs of pants, 1 trench coat and 1 jacket, bankrupting me in the process.

Monday was studying — the whole day. Thanks Chris for tutoring me!

And today, was BBQ with some cutie-pie friends. 🙂

So how did you celebrate your mid-autumn festival long weekend? Do share!

Gotta shower and sleep. Night night!