Qing Ming Jie today. We woke up early and headed out to the grave at 8:20am.
We were the first ones there. They had traffic control set up near the entrance to Dadusan, and the control officers wore all orange long-limber clothes, with a hood-to-neck covering, sunglasses and a surgical mask. For maximum sun protection!
There were a lot of those arched gazebos set up near the ash tower, for families to place offerings as there's no space in the tower.
The weather turned fine for the morning when it was originally forecasted to rain. A little too fine lol.
Someone from Nana's family had already come and done the offerings. There are flowers in the pots next to the graves. One candle holder was on the floor for some reason?? I picked it up and placed it back where it should be.
三叔's family were next to arrive. And then 四叔 and 五叔. 五叔 bought all the goods, the offerings, snacks, incense, water/tea etc.
People helped place the offerings on the graves, and the paper yuanbo too. We got given paper money and told to place it on top of the mound using stones to weigh them down. One was placed on top of the gravestone. I wonder if these stones were the sames ones we got asked to pick up as a kid? I remember going around to pick rocks up for this purpose, it must have been when 爺爺 was recently buried.
We also gave offerings to the 土地公 and 龍神 ？. After everyone prayed and put their incense into the holder pot, they hung around. I asked for one for 姥姥 and 姥爺, and one for the 土地公 on their side.
五叔 gave me a disposable cup and poured some water for the 土地公 and 姥姥 and 姥爺.
The family just hung around and chatted. 五叔 was telling 安安 about using a bank's app to buy ETFs and how her mum does it lol. Someone commented they have been buying gold instead.
Then they were looking for the 擲筊 which was placed on the top of the red drinks cartons so it blended in LOL. They took it out of the plastic and put it around the cup of drink offering.
Later they 擲筊 and started to burn the paper money. There was a lot. A looooot. But a lot of people helped so it wouldn't take as long lol. The little burner was shaped like a house so the holes (windows) on top and sides were easier to place the paper in to burn VS the front door. I called dad just so I can update him and said hi to everyone.
Before we finished burning 二叔 said I had to go now so he can pick Meilin ayi up for lunch. Aww. Can't stay till the end.
We went and picked ayi up and then headed to Tokiya 陶板屋 and parked at the nearby parking lot costing $90/hour on weekends. Yikes! The whole family went. I was a bit anxious on the indoor air, but looks like the building has proper HVAC. The Airspot read ~560ppm at reception, and then we were in a side partition room with one other table of other diners, and 3 big tables were our family. It read about ~800ppm before the rest of the family arrived and it read about 1000-1200ppm, which isn't too bad for the amount of people. I think I can survive this.
The food itself was really good though. You pick a salad, a soup, a main, a side, a drink, and a dessert. So stuffed. I picked fruit salad, beef/tomato soup, steak/fish combo main, takoyaki ball side, Yuzu soda drink, and caramel pudding dessert.
The steak they asked how done, and I said medium, which is 五分熟. Everyone else asked for 七分熟. When the steak arrived it was medium rare consistency... Mmmm looooool. Everyone else's was more medium to medium done. Lmao. Okay so it's different here. Oh well I can still eat the steak no biggie, just funny. Next time I also ask for 70% done.
Since it's a Japanese style, western teishoku the flavours were pretty nice. The pudding was awesome. The takoyaki ball was eh. The beef soup was lovely. The main was nice but not amazing. Overall it's pretty yummy. The waiters were all dressed in chef-style neckerchef uniforms and a hat.
At the end of the meal, everyone huddled together for a family photo. The restaurant printed out a copy and a frame for every family. That's nice.
After that we went home and I sorted out my postcards, printed some more to make up for the ones Kayla didn't get because she didn't pass along her address to me in time.
That took the whole day.... I took a nap from 4-5:30pm and when I woke up I went to 7-11 and bought my yoghurt drink and a Supau ($49 + $29). And printed off those postcards on the ibon machine ($56 for like 9 cards). Then I went back up to 8F and tried to get some air - wasn't much of a breeze. I felt so groggy and drank the Supau. Felt a little better.
Dinner is at 6:30pm. And Meilin ayi made dumplings from 八方雲集 with 3 side dishes. Thank you ayi. Afterwards we finished the pork spine and bamboo shoot soup. I accidentally smashed the bowl when I tried to get the last bits of the soup out of the pot, with the pot handle slipping back and crashing into the lip of the bowl. Rip rest of the soup.
二叔 helped clean up and I did the dishes. He ended up vacuuming the whole house as well. After clean up I finished the rest of the postcards. Then it was almost 9pm, I took a shower and finished blogging for yesterday.
The washing was done around 10:30pm, and I hung it out and then went to bed. So tired.
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