Weddings, puppets and ghost money

Last weekend Cindy and I had a quiet weekend down at her parents house. Saturday was fairly uneventful. We relaxed at Cindy's house with Xiao Shong during the day and in the evening we sort of crashed a wedding.
Cindy's parents were invited to a wedding but did not want to go. Saturday was the day Cindy's brother finished his military service and they had to go bring him home. While me and Cindy were trying to decide on what to do for dinner Cindy figured we could just take a red envelope to the wedding and eat there. At a wedding here it is customary to give a red envelope or 紅包 with some money in it. We hit the wedding as did about 500-600 other people.
As most Taiwanese weddings it was just a feast. Everyone goes in, eats and then heads out complete with their grab bags of food leftovers and whatever alcohol that was not drunk. Guests often grab complete bottles of wine and tuck them under their seats before the meal even begins! Cindy and I made off with some fishballs, pork, 2 bottles of Taiwan beer and a bottle of red wine. As we were leaving some very lean looking old folks came in to grab what leftovers they could before the main wedding organisers chased them away.In, out and home all in an hour and a half. Truly efficent!!
Sunday was guan di's b-day. I took xiao shong swimming and then we hung around the house, watched a bit of the puppet show for the gods (complete with eight-track soundtrack) and later we burned some ghost money with Cindy's mother and Aunt before lunch. After lunch I headed back to Tainan for soccer. If you care to see all the pics you can go here.