After a day spent shopping my mom and I called my uncle’s family to join us for some dim sum in Chinatown.
Go all the way through KTown until you meet Hill Street then take a left. Welcome to Chinatown, home to dragons, luck tapered in red paper bags and dim sum – but only from 11 to 2:30 pm. We arrived ten short of 6.
“Aughh!”
“What?! What, mom, WHAT?!” A shriek from mom can mean anything from locking her keys in the car, forgetting to pick up eggs along with the groceries or leaving the stove on in the house before leaving for work.
“WHAT IS IT?!”
“…They only serve dim sum for lunch,” she said.
I exhaled, slowly, picked up the regular dinner menu and proceeded with life.
…
We ate Peking Duck, fried shrimp puffs, chicken feet, Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce, fresh crab with flat noodles and sweet, white bread. After dessert we went on a mission: to find a local Chinese market.
We knew there was one, probably several within 20 square feet of us. So we set off on foot in search of the market rumored to have the freshest seafood for the lowest price.
After fifteen minutes we didn’t find the market but we did find a Chinese fortune pond. A stone was carved out with several holes and levels, each one carrying one or two small cans with a name tag: Luck, Money, Vacation, Peace, Love. The stone was already covered with pennies of people who were out of fortune and didn’t leave with any.
We each got three pennies and took our swing at it. I aimed for money and was widely short both times. On my last try I thought “what the hell” and went for Love. I tossed the penny which hit the stone and jumped into the can. My mom and I screamed.
“Maybe you shouldn’t go to Africa this summer…” said my uncle.
I looked at the green buddha grinning. It doesn’t hurt to have a penny’s worth of hope, does it?
Our crab dinner with flat noodles. yumm =)
We eventually found a Chinese market. But it was closing.
Tons of Chinese drinks!
The Buddha Fortune Pond. Do you see LOVE?
