Cinco de Mayo Festival, Oakland May 5, 2007
Every year on May 5th, Latino people in the United States celebrate Mexico's victory over the invading French army on the morning of May 5, 1862. My children and I joined in this special day of celebration with music, dance, food and fun in the Fruitvale area of the city of Oakland.
The ad in the local newspaper about Cinco de Mayo.
The headlines of the celebration in the Fronteras.
The Tribune Newspaper headquarter in Oakland stands against the beautiful blue Saturday sky.
While waiting for Anh-Vu (my older son) to make a rendezvous with Bao and I, I took some pictures of interesting buildings around downtown Oakland. The reflection on this building always fascinates me.
We were now in Fruitvale area, people and the Mexican flags were everywhere.
Fruitvale Village is right across from Fruitvale BART station, a very convenient connection to the East Bay Area.
Children like to go in these to bounce around.
The water fountain in the middle of the Village.
This is a Vietnamese fast food restaurant in the Village, and fast food= mediocre food.
This snack-cart reminds me of the sandwich cart in Viet Nam.
And these chips taste similar to that of Vietnamese's banh phong tom or shrimp chips.
It was pretty hot that day (around 80F), so seeing these beautiful sweaters made me feel even hotter.
Music instruments made from some kind of seeds. The little cute toy animals shake their heads in the gentle breeze or when you pick them up.
The hats and masks stand caught my attention because it was so colorful.
I tried several unsuccessful times to get a right snap shot of this beautiful little girl.
The Latino ladies.
...And the Latino men.
The dresses and the jewelries.
Bao likes ice cream.
...And I like the red Che Guevara flag.
These tall glass fruit drinks cost 7 dollars per glass, you can keep the glass of course.
There was similar kind of ice cream truck in Viet Nam too with ringing bells to catch customers' attention.
B.B.Q. stand omitted lots of smoke and it smelled really good. Yum! Yum!
The Latino music and the dance made you want to sing and dance (even if you don't know how to dance, like me.)
Art work by a Latino artist.
A fish pinata. It is a popular game among Latino people during a birthday party. There are lots of candies inside the fish. And this is how a game is played: A child selected will be blind-folded, turn around by an adult a few times, when let go, he/she has to hit the pinata with a long stick. He/she will get only one try, if he/she could not hit it another child will have a turn. When finally the pinata breaks open and candies spills out, the rest of the children would join in to pick up the candies.
Even a pet dog joined in the celebration. But he did not look very enthusiastic though.
Colorful balloons were also everywhere.
Even the trash cans are colorful and decorative. We felt like we were in Mexico. We really had a good time and already looked forward to next year's festivities at the end of the day.
The ad in the local newspaper about Cinco de Mayo.
The headlines of the celebration in the Fronteras.
The Tribune Newspaper headquarter in Oakland stands against the beautiful blue Saturday sky.
While waiting for Anh-Vu (my older son) to make a rendezvous with Bao and I, I took some pictures of interesting buildings around downtown Oakland. The reflection on this building always fascinates me.
We were now in Fruitvale area, people and the Mexican flags were everywhere.
Fruitvale Village is right across from Fruitvale BART station, a very convenient connection to the East Bay Area.
Children like to go in these to bounce around.
The water fountain in the middle of the Village.
This is a Vietnamese fast food restaurant in the Village, and fast food= mediocre food.
This snack-cart reminds me of the sandwich cart in Viet Nam.
And these chips taste similar to that of Vietnamese's banh phong tom or shrimp chips.
It was pretty hot that day (around 80F), so seeing these beautiful sweaters made me feel even hotter.
Music instruments made from some kind of seeds. The little cute toy animals shake their heads in the gentle breeze or when you pick them up.
The hats and masks stand caught my attention because it was so colorful.
I tried several unsuccessful times to get a right snap shot of this beautiful little girl.
The Latino ladies.
...And the Latino men.
The dresses and the jewelries.
Bao likes ice cream.
...And I like the red Che Guevara flag.
These tall glass fruit drinks cost 7 dollars per glass, you can keep the glass of course.
There was similar kind of ice cream truck in Viet Nam too with ringing bells to catch customers' attention.
B.B.Q. stand omitted lots of smoke and it smelled really good. Yum! Yum!
The Latino music and the dance made you want to sing and dance (even if you don't know how to dance, like me.)
Art work by a Latino artist.
A fish pinata. It is a popular game among Latino people during a birthday party. There are lots of candies inside the fish. And this is how a game is played: A child selected will be blind-folded, turn around by an adult a few times, when let go, he/she has to hit the pinata with a long stick. He/she will get only one try, if he/she could not hit it another child will have a turn. When finally the pinata breaks open and candies spills out, the rest of the children would join in to pick up the candies.
Even a pet dog joined in the celebration. But he did not look very enthusiastic though.
Colorful balloons were also everywhere.
Even the trash cans are colorful and decorative. We felt like we were in Mexico. We really had a good time and already looked forward to next year's festivities at the end of the day.
posted by Nga at 1:35 PM
2 Comments:
"This is a Vietnamese fast food restaurant in the Village, and fast food= mediocre food."
I am surprised you made that comment about saigon wraps. I think they make the best Vietnamese pork sandwich - banh mi thit nuong.
They grill their meats in an open flame. Places like Ba Le scare me. They have a closet and you don't know where they cook their
food. Many small Vietnamese banh mi shops don't have a full hood/kitchen. Where do they cook their meats?
This place makea a very good "bun thit nuong" and their summer roll is very good too. I think the only reason why they also sell "American" food is because the rent is so high.
This is not a chain and many people believe it is. They may have a flashy presentation and slick advertising but it is definitely not a corporate 'fast food' place.
It is run by two brothers who claim that their family introduced banh mi to America 30 years ago.
Thanks for visiting my weblog. My children and I tried Saigon Wraps once and we all agreed that the food was not so good (so-so). I tried a second time, this time with a different dish just to be fair. But once again was not really impressed by their cooking.
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