Asian Garden Mall

I went to the Asian garden mall yesterday to buy gifts for the Chinese New Year which happens to land on Valentine's day this year. I feel sorry for people that live remotely close to that area. Trying to find parking was madness!!! Luckily OCC trained me well to stalk people for their parking spots lol. I actually wanted to buy my mother this pot of cool looking orchids, but when she told me the price of $450 I choked and gawked at the scene. Not to mention, these flowers only bloom once a year... You gotta be kidding me!?!?!? So your telling me, I have to water this thing 365 days a year for just a month or so to stare at these mini flower things? Some people are nuts. They even had this exotic carnivorous fly eating pitcher plants. I think I'll take the $10 potted orchids. haha =) Anyway, random people were singing on stage and the dragon dance people had their little performance at the front entrance. I wonder why little kids love to feed these guys money. I bet they could make a killing on the streets of Santa Monica! I remember as a little kid, I always wanted my own dragon costume. I ended our visit with the traditional tet game of "Loc Bo Cua" which translates to "shake cow crab" or something like that? It's a board game that consists of 6 squares. the dealer has under a bowl 3 dices and each side of the dice has a picture of one of the 6 squares(deer/crab/shrimp/rooster/fish/sake bottle). The idea of the game is you make your bet and hopefully one of the 3 dice will roll your number. You can bet as much as you want to win or loose =) but you have to know when to quit. This year they legally got the city to approve of it only on the day of(feb 14th), so when the dealers see a cop they quickly fold up the boards and pretend that they're not doing anything. It's a funny scene to see because these guys are super fast. I ended up winning like 30-50 bucks. Nothing serious but just enough to have a good time and that's what Chinese New Year is all about to me! =) Chuc Mung Nam Oi!