It’s Chinese New Year. There are a few times of the year Pokin loves to use as an excuse to have too much food, and apparently this is one of them. Even though none of us are year of the Dragon, dragons seem cool, and Pokin said we can all use some luck, so she went a little bit all out. I do love me some dragons, so I approved.
What started as a small celebration quickly got out of control. Lion dancers, you ask? Sure, why not? For a donation to the school, you can hire the local karate school to come perform. And despite the fact we had this on actual Chinese New Year, they were available! So my bud and Pokin invited way too many people, and we had them all over.
Technically my tag does say “Made in China”, and while I don’t consider this a large part of my identity it is sometimes nice to celebrate. And so celebrate we did!
Apparently Pokin wasn’t happy with feeding my bud cold cinnamon buns on his first day here, so we decided to head back to Reykjavík and to Braud again. This time we were hoping to land some fresh hot cinnamon buns.
We were also going to meet up with Anna and Adam, my bud’s sister and her boyfriend who were just getting into town.
We parked right by Hallgrimskirkja, Iceland’s largest church because of the free parking, or as my bud said instead so we could “abuse the good will of the holy house.”
Hallgrímskirkja is one of Iceland’s tallest structures, at 74.5m or 244 feet tall. The church is named after Icelandic poet and clergyman Hallgrímur Pétursson. Construction of the church started in 1945 and ended in 1986, meaning it took 41 years. Hallgrímskirkja is a Lutheran church, which explains the austerity of the church’s interior and exterior.
Ok enough of the church.
To cinnamon buns. There was a line. Good sign.
Pokin and Adam went inside the store, where they tried to tell her they didn’t have hot cinnamon buns. All the while Pokin said she was staring at an oven full of baking cinnamon buns.
“How long till those are ready?” She asked, pointing to the buns in the oven.
“About a minute.” Was the response.
“I’ll wait,” said Pokin.
“Me too, can I change my order?” said the person right in front of her that had settled for cold cinnamon buns.
So they waited less than a minute and were shortly rewarded with hot cinnamon buns.
I took a sniff. Not bad, but I’m holding up for cocoa.
“What do you think?” Pokin asks eagerly. “Better than before?”
“I guess,” was all my bud would declare.
Then we started wandering through town. We started down the main road from Hallgrímskirkja, which was painted in rainbow colours in honour of Iceland’s annual Gay Pride festival.
We next wove our way past the Prime Minister’s house and the Parliament building before ending up here. Pokin wanted to take my bud and I to a hotdog stand.
Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, meaning “The City’s Best Hotdog” is a popular tourist destination. The stand has been there since 1937, and the recommended way to eat it is eina með öllu, or one with everything.
The “everything” is a lamb sausage, a kind of remoulade, ketchup, mustard, raw onions, and fried onions. Even Bill Clinton has gotten hot dogs from this stand but apparently he only got his with mustard. Blasphemy!
They did it. Mr. Noodle Instant noodles out of coffee cups cooked with a coffee maker in the bathroom. I wanted no part of it. Just hot cocoa, which they didn’t offer me.
Today, we hung out again with one of the men behind all that giant pulsed power machine (aka, almost like a laser). We got a tour thanks to Nicholas’ Uncle Frank. I love that my best bear bud knows a Laser Scientist. And today, Uncle Frank took us to try something else – New Mexican food.
For the most part, New Mexican food is a lot like Mexican food, but they’ve got a few specialties like sopapillas, which is a type of fried bread that you eat with honey. I liked eating it with a lot of honey. We went to a place called Monroe’s, and aside from Sopapillas, they served us chips and salsa for breakfast. Even better.
Chinese New Year is the biggest Chinese holiday of the year. Most offices are closed for at least a week, many for a full two weeks. So before the shutdown, I thought it to be a fine idea to visit Pokin’s dad’s office. First of all I heard it was a food business. Second I liked the notion of a boss-to-bear-boss chat.
But a quick look around proved that there was little in the way of chocolate or hot cocoa. On that point alone, I have decided I like my office better.
Plus I can play games in my office.
Well at least I can entertain myself watching Eric make crepes for the employees.
