Eating Tang Yuan

One special kind of food I've had this trip was tang yuan. Tang yuan are basically little sticky balls made from rice flour (imagine tapioca, but softer). Normally tang yuan don't have any kind of filling, but these days they can be stuffed with all kinds of different things: Black sesame paste, lotus paste, red bean paste, green tea paste, crushed peanuts, etc. They're typically served in a sweet, gingery syrup.

This was a cool spot: They were blasting Christmas music

The gang's all here

The yuan in tang yuan has the meaning of "round" or "reunion". Thus, tang yuan often come to symbolize family togetherness and they are often eaten with family and at certain important holidays.

Close-up of the tang yuan: You can see they come in many colors