Bend, OR

After my trip to Oregon’s Central Coast I was on my way to visit my daughter for her birthday and I was tired as I felt like I had driven for 2 solid days. It was decided after I got to my daughter’s house that I would go get my niece and we would all go to the Asian Festival in Eugene. Now at first I didn’t want to go. Peace & quiet and some downtime is what I was craving not a couple of cars full of kids and what I knew would be a late night. Well I just picked myself up and decided ok here goes nothing.

Upon showing up at the Asian Festival at the Lane County Fairgrounds there was hardly any parking and after hunting we finally found a spot way out in left field. I kept remarking about the amount of cars and that I was surprised at the amount of people who would choose to go to the festival.

Well to my surprise the festival was great. We had a blast. There were a million streaming people and the whole place was redolent w/ not only the different smells of Asian food fare but the different arts were amazing. Many things that I took for granted as being US made were made by Asians and their artwork is just stunning in many aspects.

There were also several stages where different dance styles and self defense styles were being exhibited. Unknowing to me, just not to everyone else in my party, our friend Gabe was in one of the self defense productions. He was also to be at the surprise b-day party for my daughter later that evening. We watched the different dancers and of course made our own critiquing standards. We tried speaking in Chinese and Cantonese by an elderly man who was wandering around to teach us hello and good bye in different languages…no I do not know how to say either of these words at this time.

We came upon an origami station and I had thought I had seen the extent of origami but apparently not. There was so many different origami characters that I didn’t realize existed. Some of the dragons were done in colored foils. The boquet of wild flowers were done up in similar foils, glitter paper & a cellophane type of paper, complete with different colored centers. I am not this nimble fingered, I would have definitely torn the paper.

We each bought something different from the different Asian food vendors and sat at a table sampling everyone’s plate which in the end erupted into much laughter and an almost food fight with rice and chopsticks. I am famous for spur of the moment food fights and our last one was pumpkin guts at Halloween.

All in all we had an awesome time. We learned much of the country’s history, what they eat, saw a lot of their artwork and tried to understand their economics. The whole place was festive and even all the kids running around had a great time.

To top off the day of the Asian Festival, about 20 of us gathered for my daughter’s 18^th birthday and did our own sushi. My niece thought sushi was disgusting until she tried it. She came back to me later that night and thanked me for a great day.

So I have learned that no matter how tired I am I will make a point to go to the cultural festivals. I worked my way out of my tiredness and learnt a lot of this culture and had a great time teasing some of the vendors, eating of the foods one doesn’t eat everyday. I can’t wait for another cultural festival whether it be Asian or some other culture. I would definitely recommend these festivals to all.