Food Festival

Why was I at this food festival? Not to eat, ironically!

I’ve been eating too much, completely without realizing it, because I didn’t bring a scale with me to China. After I finally got one, and finally got batteries for it, and finally put the batteries in, it gave me bad news. (Even without converting the kilogram readout to pounds, I knew it was bad news.)

So it was decided I need to walk more. Fine. During the weekend, rather than drive to visit the nearest mall, Siqi and I walked. It was really hot, and also kinda rainy, but we walked there anyway. (We both carried umbrellas, to ensure that it would not start raining harder.) And lo and behold, when we got there, there was this festival. Wait till you see one of the carnival games they had there!

Try your luck!

Okay so you know how carnivals have all sorts of throwing games designed to be practically impossible to win?

For 30 Chinese yuan (equivalent to about 6 SGD or 4 USD, paid by scanning a QR code), you get a basket of 50 to 60 plastic rings to throw; for 50 yuan, you get two baskets (130 to 140 rings). If you throw the ring and it hangs off something, you get that thing specifically, you can’t change to a different prize. If you miss, you get nothing.

Right, so far, very predictable! But what if the thing you’re trying to encircle were alive?

In another game at the festival, you could win a goose. (Theoretically.)

For 30 Chinese yuan, you get 15 ridiculously small plastic rings with which to try to ensnare one of these giant twitchy birds. GOOD LUCK WITH THAT.
These geese not only have heads that seem about as big as the plastic rings you’re meant to use, they duck when you throw the rings at them! (I learned this by watching someone else throw, LOL.)

Eat, drink, and be merry!

Meanwhile, at the food and drink stalls, when you pay, you actually get something. 100% guaranteed! (Thank goodness!)

We saw barbecue skewers served by people in vaguely ethnic-minority-looking clothes who were blasting loud music (because marketing), chestnuts, stinky tofu, various kinds of potato-based snacks, Japanese-style octopus balls, ice cream, bubble tea, fresh coconuts, and I don’t know what-all else. Didn’t buy anything!
It seemed to be the mall’s sixth birthday (as announced here), and also a “beer and dragon lobster/prawn festival”? (I don’t recall seeing any beer. Or seafood, actually.)
The mall prepared a ginormous cake to share with shoppers for free.

We did not queue for cake.

We just walked around the whole mall, which we’d never explored, and bought some snacks at the supermarket before walking back home. I wasn’t carrying anything except an umbrella, but still, I thought I’d never make it back up the stairs! That was some good exercise, for a bookworm like me!