LunarFest 08, Year of the Rat
This year the Orient held the 4th annual LunarFest from Feb 21-25. It took an army of volunteers and months of planning; this year marked the first we've opted to feature the New Years traditions celebrated by Mongolia, Korea and Vietnam. It was a learning experience for all, participants and hardworking party planners.
The 21st was the Opening ceremony, a fun, unscripted gathering held in our annually redesigned LunarFest thread where New Years traditions were featured, our 'ongoing events' were made available for use, Taiko drummers were danced to and everyone sent Lunar E-Cards thru Alerissa's AW Ecard center.
The 22nd was Tet Nguyen in Vietnam with an Ancestral Shrine to visit, a Tet article, a Cau Doi thread for Tet style spring poetry and the funny writing event, 'Dont forget your Fish Sauce!' to celebrate the scarier side of Vietnam cuisine. Event winners were Ng Mui in 1st place & Germaniae in 2nd.
The 23rd was Tsagaan Sar in Mongolia, with a fun quiz of Mongolia's Manly Games, 2 Mongolia articles, the opening of the Wretched Mare Yurt & Taberna and the primary event was the (very stylish) Sacred Mare Treasure Hunt, who's winners were Chaka in 1st, Senex grabbed 2nd and Taysat in 3rd place.
The 24th was Solnal in Korea, with the Hall of Worthies article tour featuring many great Asian articles, 2 new Korea articles of it's own, & the main event of the day (week actually) was the Shaman's Storytelling contest which ran through to Weds to allow more entries & winners were Hoshiko in 1st, Tao in 2nd & Hakuin in 3rd.
The 25th was our closing ceremony, where we waved farewell to LunarFest for another year, ate our fill from a traditional New Years menu featuring select cuisine from each of our three highlight countries, drinks and entertainment by Kenji who really outdid himself & we all selected a take home gift from a wide choice including Sankira's Rats for every occasion and gift kiosks built by Vortigern and Xena in each highlight country board. [Year of Rat gifts + Vietnam, Mongolia & Korea]
LunarFest is over but quite a lot is still available for enjoying, and hopefully Egypt will let their cats out after BastFest to help us clean up our rampant rat problem! Endless Thank You's to Sankira, Shibori, Rachana, Kazuo, Senex, Vort, Xena, Kenji, Alerissa, Sementawy & everyone who helped make this such a memorable LunarFest.
