Mid-Autumn Festival

If you didn't know already, THIS time of year is my most favorite time of year, and this month is my favorite of all months. Around this time back in 2008, I was in Shanghai, China, on a business trip (sans Missy, unfortunately), in the midst of the MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL, also known as the MOON FESTIVAL or the MOON CAKE FESTIVAL or LANTERN FESTIVAL. It is one of the most special times of the year in China, and they celebrate it in a big way...

Anyways, one night, on the street right in front of our hotel, they had a big MOON FESTIVAL PARADE...people lined the street to catch a glimpse of these glowing floats make their way through the "outdoor mall" that our hotel was a part of. Each colorful float represented a different Asian country (the image above is the "Japan" float). I took a bunch of photos, but for some reason, never got around to posting them to the blog until now...



























































At some point, the parade came to a grinding halt because one of the floats broke down. After standing around for about 20 minutes, I decided to take shelter from the sweltering evening humidity in the TOYS R US located in a little indoor mall next door to the hotel...













I also ducked into the awesomely-named CARTOONY WORLD - a floor in the mall that was part playground, part video arcade...