Fall

Some of the villages that surround the city where I live are particularly famous for their apples.  For those that like apples, this is the place to be!  The week I arrived was my school’s break between 1st and 2nd quarters.  During the break, most of the students went to their hometowns and the ones who live in apple country brought back mountains of apples.  They brought back a lot of my roommates (and since I live with them, I got to enjoy them as well) and they gave about the same amount to the office for all of our school staff.   Between our apartment and office we were starting to try and be creative with what to do with them; I think an apple crisp (or two) was attempted, an apple coffee cake, and one of my roommates has been having fun making applesauce. 

In a society that still holds on to some superstitions and might be considered a little fatalistic, it never ceases to amaze me what people will do to bring about good luck and blessing.  One morning as I was pulling an apple out of the bag to eat, I was amazed to find this

This character means "blessing"

It's not a sticker or paint, somehow they did something so that the peel did not change from yellow/green to red.  Pretty awesome.  If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, I wonder what this one might do for you?  

In other areas of Fall related happenings, a couple days after I got here was their Ghost/Spirit Festival.  On this day, people will buy fake paper money and other things and go out especially after dark and light them on fire as an offering to their ancestors' spirits (or ghosts) who wonder the streets.  I think, as they are burned, the deceased are supposed to receive a usable version of these offerings to assist them in the afterlife.  I don't know how many people still really believe this, but it's tradition and they still do it.  The best part of this day, from my perspective, is that they seem to think that lighting these fires on the sidewalks and in the middle of intersections, especially the larger ones, is better.  Imagine traffic that's a little crazy to start with and then add small fires in the road.

Fall is also the time when leaves fall off the trees.  This week, all the leaves on the trees that line the road on the way to school dropped off.  There are some mountains nearby that actually have trees with leaves that change color this time of year, but I was a little bit surprised that all the trees near school still had their leaves and that they were green.  I guess I had forgotten this from last year; their leaves just barely turn a slightly more yellowish-brown shade of green and then all at once they fall off.  I showed one of our interns some pictures of what some of trees back home looked like right before I left and she thought they were all fake leaves.  They are definitely lacking in this area around here.

I have been told by several people that this year, Winter is supposed to be a very cold.   Right now it is rather mild and the students keep making comments about how it is not cold yet.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see, there's still plenty of time for cold to come, but as for now even though it drops below freezing at night, I'm enjoying the mid-50s (degrees Fahrenheit) during the days.