At Yuyuan for Spring Festival

Although Spring Festival (aka Chinese New Year) ended Monday night with the Lantern Festival, the beautiful decorations at Yuyuan will stay up for another week or so. Madelyn and I went to see them Tuesday afternoon, and they did not disappoint! Lanterns, lanterns everywhere... I've been told it is quite beautiful at night when they are all lit up! Have to see that one of these years.

Enjoying my soup dumpling (you drink the broth out of the inside with a straw before cutting or biting it open to eat the meat) with a friendly ox looking on!

You know it is the Year of the Ox... but did you know that dumplings are boiled with an entire ox skull, complete with horns, right in the broth? Check this picture out! I saw this at several dumpling stands, and I think it is a real ox head... but I can't be sure. Makes me wonder... surely there weren't rats in the broth last year!