Buddah's Birthday

Did you know that this past weekend was Buddah's birthday? Well apparently it was and there were big celebrations here in Brisbane for this special day. There were fireworks saturday and sunday nights and all sorts of activities and festivities happening during the day. Todd discovered these festivities while meandering along the river towards the city on saturday and we decided to explore the celebrations on sunday.

This chinese style gate was put up in honour and celebration of Buddah. Quite and elaborate structure to put up just for the weekend!

All these strings of chinese lanterns light up at night.

Some adorable Dora pjs. They are everywhere at the weekend markets here. Guess what all the neices are getting when we return home for a visit..... Do they still like Dora? or is she old news now? I can't seem to keep up with all these kiddie trends.


Here is one of the many shrines to Buddah. You are supposed to give seven offerings to Buddah. I can't remember what they all are now, but I think I gave three of them...

Here's one of the offerings, water. There are all these little set ups of miniature Buddahs sitting on top of a long trough of water, with little scoups off to the side. You are supposed to kneel on the bench and pour water over Buddah. Don't ask why, I'm not really sure, just thought it might make a good picture for our blog.

Some guy carving an ice sculpture of a dragon.

Bonzai trees galore!!


Unfortunately for us, we didn't know that there were all sorts of yummy yummy asian food kiosks everywhere! We ate disgusting subway in the city before we came here. So we wandered around for a couple hours until we were hungry again so that we could sample some of the food available. Mmm lots of great vegetarian selection for me :)

Here we are after filling up on vegetarian sticky rice (my favorite!) and veggie turnip cakes.