Dragon Boat Festival

Yup, we took our own advice and headed to the Dragon Boat FEstival in DC on Saturday. It was really cool. All the pictures on today's post are from the festival. Comparing it to what I saw on some other websites about San Francisco's, Toronto's, MOntreal's, NYC, etc, it seemed to be much smaller but it was still beautiful.

It's on a very small peice of land that runs along the Potomac, there's really no land for food or vendor's or anything. We were hoping to pick up t-shirts and grab a bite to eat while there. Unfortunately, we didn't even bring chairs to sit on and the grass was very high so we stood along the river for a while throughout the day.

The day started off with the official stuff yada yada, thanks to this person and that person and so on and so on. You know, the normal stuff that always has to happen before any event. Following that 'stuff' a really cool and wonderful (but we could barely see through the crowds... BUMMER) Lion Dance occurred. The Lion Dancers, I think 3 under each costume, wore this brightly colored costume, it was so cool, makes us anxious to head out to San Francisco next year to see some of the festivals at a larger place.

After the Lion Dance, the offical start of the race occurs right after the Eye Dotting Ceremony. "Dotting the Eye" refers in particular to the Chinese tradition of painting in the eye of the Chinese lion before the start of the lion dance to awaken the spirit of the lion. The eyes on the dragon heads on the boats are dotted through painting... in this case, 2 children painted most of the eyes. It was really sweet.

After that, they had the "pink flower" blessing? Maybe Blessing isn't the right word. But the wonderful thing about it is that there is a HUGE following of DRagon Boat Racing by Breast Cancer Survivors, something like 25 teams in the USA are all made up of Breast Cancer Survivor's. The blessing was to honor all of those who did and did not survive this very sad disease. Many of the teams dress in pink or have some pink item on to designate them as such. Pink carnations were handed to every member on the 3 boats in the first race, a song was sung and when it was over they all threw the carnations in the water, it was quite lovely.

In today's races there were 5 'pink' teams competing from the east coast, it was really touching and heart warming. I noticed, during the research for my earlier post, that there seemed to be a strong following of Dragon Boat racing by breast cancer survivors but I didn't realize how big it was.

The first event started off with 2 US teams and one from Taipei, it was very cool. Yes, there was a team from Taipei, so that was neat. There were also teams from various local businesses and colleges, teams of young adults that may or may not have been of college age and so on.

All in all, the weather was great, hanging out on the banks of the river was peaceful. Just what we needed.


Part way through the races we did head over to Georgetown, DC and had lunch at Johnny Rockets, did some window shopping and looked at kids clothes... holy shit, a linen dress for $98!!!! Who the hell affords that? THey were beautiful though and yes, we passed on them. I figure the guys in suits and their 'dates'/wives or whatever who were strolling the streets dressed to the 9's on a Saturday probably pay that much, but not us. Heck, I had a hard enough time rationalizing a Suit Coat for $119 last week, but figured I rarely buy clothes and it would last many years and I needed it for some stuff anyway so I bought it. But for a child who might where it once? All I can say again is "holy shit".

We also saw a replica of the old time barge/lock travelling from years past. I've been to Georgetown a few times and never noticed this right off the main street. They pull the boat down the canal by a rope, no motors and hand crank the locks to open. Too cool. Reminded us of our trip to Belgium last year and all the locks we went through on our rented boat. That was a trip of a lifetime and we are so fortunate to have been able to do that.

We ended the day in a shop where we did buy something, this beautiful little tea pot figurine. A very small replica of one I've been dying to get for almost 2 years now... since our first pregnancy. The large one is a replica of Van Gogh's Starry Night. This little tea pot is in the same theme, it's 3" wide by 3" tall. I'll still get the larger one, it's not too pricey anyway, but this small one was so cute and fits perfect with the colors in the nursery. It's now on the shelf that Pop built.

All for today.