Fresh Wednesdays
Date: Every Wednesday (July 15 to August 26)
Time: 8 A.M. to 2 P.M.
Location: Nathan Phillips Square

Starting on July 15 until the last Wednesday of August, you can shop for fresh fruits and vegetables at the Farmers’ Market at Nathan Phillips Square and enjoy some live music. The Farmers’ Market at Nathan Phillips square will run until October 14–there’s just no live music.

Tasty Thursdays
Date: Every Thursday (July 16 to August 27)
Time: 11 A.M. to 2 P.M.
Location: Nathan Phillips Square

Starting on July 16 until the last Thursday of August, you can taste foods from some Toronto restaurants. Samosas, mango salads, vegetable spring rolls, and vegetarian sushi. All for $5 or less! This year they are starting to serve their food in eco-friendly containers.

Mariposa Cruises’ Fireworks Dinner Cruise
Date: Sat, June 27; Wed, July 1; Sat July 4
Time: 7:00 P.M. to 11:30 P.M.
Location: Toronto Harbour

Cruise around the Toronto Harbour on Captain Matthew Flinders for four hours while you enjoy the fireworks and a buffet-style dinner.

The 43rd Annual CHIN International Picnic
Date: July 1, 4, 5
Time: Noon to 11 P.M.
Location: Canadian National Exhibition

A music festival, picnic, sporting events, Mr. and Mrs. CHIN International Bikini Contests, petting zoo, K-9 Dog Challenge, and a 100,000 square foot bazaar at the C.N.E.It’s a great excuse for the family to go out and enjoy the sun.

Taste of Lawrence
Date: July 3-5
Time: 8 A.M. to 11 P.M. (Fri), 11 A.M. to 11 P.M. (Sat), 11 A.M. to 6 P.M. (Sun)
Location: Lawrence Avenue East (Warden Avenue to Pharmacy)

Enjoy Lawrence Avenue East without the smelly traffic and replace it with great food and lots of things for the kids to do.

Mariposa Cruises’ Fiesta Friday Dinner
Date: July 10
Time: 6:30 P.M. to 10:00 P.M.
Location: Toronto Harbour

Sail around the Toronto Harbour on the Mariposa Belle for three hours. Enjoy a Mexican buffet-style dinner with DJ, dancing and a cash bar.

Live Green Toronto Festival
Date: July 25-26
Time: Unknown
Location: Yonge Street (Dundas to Queen)

This festival will showcase hundreds of green products for work, home and play. Browse around and taste some local foods and listen to some live music. You can even get information on how to organize a project that will turn your neighbourhood green.

Irie Music Festival
Date: July 30 to August 3
Time: See Schedule
Location: Nathan Phillips Square and Queen’s Park

There are a whole list of events for the festival. The main events of the festival are reggae and world music performances but you’ll find lots of other things to do as well, including art vendors, Caribbean dance showcase and food.

Toronto Festival of Beer
Date: August 6-8
Time: 4 P.M. to 10 P.M. (Thu, Fri), 1 P.M. to 7 P.M. (Sat)
Location: Exhibition Place

Beer, BBQ, beer, live performances, beer, grilling demos, and more beer.

KRINOS Taste of the Danforth
Date: August 7-9, 2009
Time: 6 P.M. to 11 P.M. (Fri), Noon to 11 P.M. (Sat), Noon to 8 P.M. (Sun)
Location: Greektown; Danforth Avenue (Broadview Subway Station to Jones Avenue)

The ever populaire Taste of the Danforth takes place in the heart of Greektown. Enjoy music and food in the world’s largest Greek festival outside of Greece!

The Guānggǔ Music Festival is a televised event in Wuhan. I’m not sure about the rest of China. It seemed like a big thing. The production had stage monitors, fancy-shmancy lighting, pyrotechnics like fireworks and flamethrowers, smoke machines, bubble machines, and exploding containers of gold paper that would shower the stage. They were passing out signs for the audience to hold up to the cameras when it passed by and whistles and glow sticks and colourful lightsabers. They cued fake applause, cheers and whistles. The works! It was pretty cool to see it all first hand.

I haven’t been able to find any articles on last night’s show yet, but here is the old one.

“光谷音乐节” on 武汉晚报 (May 24, 2009) (*.pdf) You can read the article in shoddy English here.

We don’t have a 4-day weekend, but we still have time to travel. Some of the teachers and I are going to head to Hángzhōu (杭州) to do the tourist thing. I really don’t know what we’re doing when we get there, but they have it all planned. We’re taking off by plane tomorrow after work and then coming back by train Saturday morning, just in time for the music festival. I did some digging around and Hángzhōu happens to be the home of the Lóngjǐng tea or Dragonwell tea (龙井茶). I’ll have to buy myself some of that. It looks like it will cost me about ¥300/box. o.O

Every Monday, we have flag ceremony in the morning instead of homeroom. After standing at attention for the Chinese national anthem a student stands under the flag and says a speech about a relevant topic for the week. This Monday, it was the Dragonboat Festival. Crystal talked about the best-known origins of the festival, the story of Qu Yuan.

Qu Yuan was a scholar and a minister to the King from the Southern Chu during the Warring States Periods. The King from the Southern Chu allied with a stronger state. Qu opposed the alliance and was banished and accused of treason. Years later, the alliance state conquered the Chu capital. After this news, Qu committed suicide on the fifth day of the fifth month by drowning himself in the Mìluó River (汨罗江).

The story says that locals that admired Qu Yuan tried to retrieve his body from the river by paddling out on boats. This is said to be the origin of the dragonboats. In hopes to stop the fish from feeding on his body, the locals threw rice into the river to feed the fish. This is said to be the origin of the rice dumpling, zòngzi (粽子) that is commonly eaten during the festival. I have some in my fridge right now. They’re so teeny tiny and cute.

We find out over the weekend that the judges have selected 3 performances from our school. Now, we have to prep for the big show on Saturday because there’s a ¥5000 prize money for the first-place performance!