Tag: big tex

Magic of Lanterns in Montréal: But who invited the Monkey King?

postcardsfromsanantonio5 Comments

The banquet we would all love to attend: The Feast of Peaches hosted by Xi Wang Mu. The menu is the main attraction because Xi Wang Mu, the Queen of the West, offers her guests peaches of immortality.

This feast is the theme of the 20th annual Magic of Lanterns display at the Montréal Botanical Garden. During the event, 700 traditional and 200 themed lanterns cast shimmering light throughout the Chinese Garden and the Japanese Garden. While designed in Canada, these are crafted in Shanghai, where lanterns have been part of festivities since the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.).

Wanting to find out more about the availability of those luscious-sounding peaches,  I turned to the Internet. There are numerous academically styled accounts of the Celestial Queen’s crop, but I prefer the less reverent one found on GodChecker:

Xi-Wangmu started off at the bottom. She was a plague-carrying tiger spirit at the time of the Han Dynasty and caused much trouble. 

But after offering the Emperor a bowl of magic peaches, her career really took off. Daoism came along and elevated her to Top Goddess. She married Mu-Gong, otherwise known as Mr. Yang, and became Mrs. Yin, the personification of Femininity.

Taking up residence in paradise, she began to be associated with immortality…. Xi-Wangmu now grows magic peach trees in her Heavenly Peach Garden. The most common of these take a thousand years to blossom — but the Golden Peaches of Immortality only ripen once in nine thousand years.

Eating one of Xi-Wangmu’s peaches bestows immediate long life and a host of other benefits. The Gods like them so much that Peach Banquets are a regular occurrence in Heaven.

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From the number of posts I have made, one would assume we spent our entire two-week vacation at the Botanical Garden. Unfortunately, however, we were not present in the evening when the lantern lights were not forced to compete with the sun. But here is one of numerous videos found online:

And, alas, we were served none of the Queen’s magical peaches. It was like visiting the Garden of Eden after the apple was bitten, thanks to that trickster, the Monkey King. According to GodChecker:

The last Peach Banquet was cancelled after Monkey ate all the peaches, but bookings are currently being taken for the next one in 5078 A.D. 

I hope the Monkey King’s invitation gets lost.

Update Added on October 17: Totally missed the news that this year’s Dallas State Fair featured a Chinese Lantern Festival. The home of Big Tex actually squeezed in more themed lanterns than Montréal.

Everything has to be bigger in the big-hair part of Texas, and the Dallas lanterns go one step farther with animation and blinking LEDs.

What else can you expect from the fried food fanatical land where awards are lavished upon such concoctions as fried bacon cinnamon rolls?

But even taken this far over the top, the lanterns look magical.

Update on October 20: I sure hope my mention of him is not what made Big Tex’s ears burn. Alas, Big Tex met the same fate as all the food in the booths around him. Fried.

Almost time to walk that walk….

postcardsfromsanantonio2 Comments

This is a sequel to “Can’t wait to walk that walk….,” which should be read first if you want to have a better idea of the new stretch of in-the-middle-of-the-river pathways to which I refer.

But first, to continue over-hyphenating before switching to incomplete sentences, this definitely qualified as one of those if-you-don’t-live-in-San-Antonio-I-feel-sorry-for-you mornings. Incredibly beautiful. The sky and river amazingly blue. The water so clear you could see the crawdads scurrying and fish swimming around the baseball left to drown after a home run hit by a Brackenridge Eagle. Don’t think it was Rodriguez. If so, the coach forgot because the only sound interrupting the birds’ songs was the coach barking from above at Rodriguez for forgetting the rest of the team.

The water birds perched upon the power plant spillway found such easy prey they forgot to be territorial over their fishing grounds. A hold-on-tightly-to-your-chihuahua-sized hawk was perched majestically high in a tree by Lone Star, the orphaned younger sibling of Pearl crying out to Kit: “Adopt me, too.” (Please do.) The crayola footbridge shimmered in the morning light, and green (although much of it probably not the much-wanted natives) sprouted all along the river’s banks, an emerald green not there a mere 48 hours earlier.

Which, of course, was the morning I had camera in hand. That morning was overcast. And, unfortunately, aside from one of the removal of the temporary dams that I was able to snap before my smartphone reminded its stupid owner that it needed charging, those are the photos I am posting. But it doesn’t matter because the project linking the San Antonio River Authority to Blue Star is so exciting, even on a cloudy day, and almost ready for walking.

The photograph of the telephone pole sticking straight out of the already-too-narrow sidewalk straddling the Alamo Street Bridge by Blue Star illustrates the obvious need for a project I had no idea was on the funded-horizon until last week’s meeting of the King William Association. Two million dollars from the Venue Tax is funding a new construction phase managed by the River Authority that will transform Alamo from four lanes to two plus a turn lane, allowing for widening the sidewalk. A new stone river crossing will link the two banks of the river, so the pathway on the King William side will no longer be a deadend. This path will be improved and stretch along the river from just below the Alamo Street Bridge to the park at Constance and Crofton Streets. On the Big Tex/Blue Star side, picnic areas will be added, as well as an art walk with several portals featuring seating and sculpture.

Can’t wait to walk that walk either.

Update on March 17: Love the news this morning about the generous donation of land Kathleen and Curtis Gunn have made to protect the missions and to link them to the Mission Reach of the river project. Also had to post the photo above of the first bluebonnets and redbonnets? popping into bloom near the Power Plant on the Mission Reach.

Update on March 23: Biking that walk will soon be an option for those of us who live in lofts with no room to store bikes of their own. Yesterday morning, a city crew was hard at work installing a bike rack for a Bike Share station at Blue Star (see photo above).

Update on April 6, 2011: The dams are removed, and water once again fills the river bed and, for the first time, cascades over the newly laid rocks of the water feature between Guenther and Alamo. Looks about ready for walking to me, but we must be waiting for some sort of speechifying formalities.

Update on April 28, 2011: Significant-sized trees are being planted below Blue Star Arts Complex today….

Update on May 11, 2011: They were carting in the missing pieces of railing this morning…. Must be time to open.

Update on May 24, 2011: Finally got to walk that walk this morning! Paseo del Rio finally is linked to the southside for walks on the wildflower side.