Havana Street Night Market (6/28/25)

This month's theme for the Havana Street Night Market was pride. I swung by the Aurora History Museum's booth to see how things were going. Right now the City of Aurora Historic Preservation Commission is trying to get community feedback on what locations are important to the community to try and preserve. Both historic and cultural sites can be saved, and with all of the construction in Aurora many of these locations may be in danger of being lost forever. If you have anywhere you would like to save, you can find more at https://engageaurora.org/historicplaces .

This time the give aways were both a fan and banana/plantain chips. The drink came from Banned Boba that is in the same parking lot. The boba drinks there are cheap, but they are not very good any more. Most of the things on the menu are usually sold out, the drinks are bland, and my mom's drink was missing about an inch worth of drink in her cup.

This is a pic before it started bleeding.

This event had something really bad happen to me. I had left my mother sitting on a black bench since she is currently in a medical boot and couldn't walk around with me as much. When I got back I braced my knee on the bench as I helped her up. Once she was standing, but before I could move my leg, the bench collapsed. I went down hard. One knee was not only skinned up, but it kept wanting to go out on me when I tried to walk on it. (The next day I would also see black and blue marks on my other leg). Luckily the main table had a first aid kit and they were nice about it. The main lady wondered if it collapsed because it had not been set up right since they use a third party company to help with the set up of the event. I would later find out that a child was also hurt at this event from a table collapsing within an hour of me getting hurt. I just hope that they either change companies that help with set up or hold the third party accountable for what happened.

I think moving forward we will bring our own chairs and not trust theirs. They had very few seats for people anyway and this is something that they need to address anyway for both people with disabilities and older adults. I would recommend if you go to this event, bring your own chairs.

Because of what happened we had to leave early (I was in a lot of pain and the knee kept not wanting to bear weight on it), we missed the main entertainment for the night which was a drag show to celebrate pride month. Sorry that I didn't get any videos from this event, but sometimes you have to make yourself the priority.   

2025 March News

 

Local

3/2: "The Colorado Springs Korean community celebrates independence from Japanese rule"- As someone that loves Japanese culture it is important to also be aware of all of the negative things that have also happened in Japanese history. https://www.koaa.com/news/covering-colorado/the-colorado-springs-korean-community-celebrates-independence-from-japanese-rule

National

3/7: "The Medal of Honor Recipient Erased in the Pentagon's DEI Purge"- https://www.military.com/history/medal-of-honor-recipient-erased-pentagons-dei-purge.html?amp

2025 On Havana Street Lunar New Years Celebration 1/26/25

The event had both an indoors and outdoors section to it. When you first walked in you were given a free pack of ramen. On the inside there were vendors selling everything from desserts to 3D printed items to Lunar New Year goods. There were also a couple of companies giving out free goodies to advertise their businesses. Labubus could even be found for $50, but I wasn't sure if they were knock offs or not. The high price does not guarantee that they were not knock offs and the place selling them I have actually bought knock off products from them for my con knock of panel. I just do not know enough about Labubus at the time of this writing to day if the ones they had were real or not.

Their opening act this year was Miki Saito performing on a traditional Japanese flute. Many of the songs were from either animes or video games.

People were not really focusing on her performance. A few people I did see make big twitches when she hit the high notes and one guy even covered his ears. I think the had the mic up too high and were not switching the sound levels between when she was talking and when she was playing.

I personally enjoyed her performance.

Upstairs they had a kid section and some additional vendors. They were also trying to advertise a charity that supports the event.

They had cute paper dragons you could put together.

Most of the food options were outside and their was a diversity of prices and quality.

This vendor had ube products that of course I could not pass up trying.

For $7 you could get an ube had pie. I will say that the price to quality ratio of this one was totally off. There was hardly any ube flavor. The problem of this was caused because the inside had two different creams/custards in it. One ube and one plain. I think the product would have been better if they would have just used the ube filling. Then the size was the same size as the box hand pies that you can find everywhere from $1.25 to $3. Since there wasn't really any ube flavor there was no reason to up charge $4 for a lack luster product. It was also very dry.

The ube butter mochi bars was the opposite experience. They had a good ube flavor and the right amount of chewyness. 

The other thing I tried I had been wanting to try since the summer night markets were the tea eggs from 10 Seconds Yunnan. They are a good restaurant on Havana street, but when they were at the Night Market they never had the eggs ready even though they advertised them.

This time they actually had the eggs ready. I had been hoping that they would be a nice flavor bomb like ramen eggs, but once cracked open they were just eggs with no special flavor. Since this was my first time trying a tea egg I do not know if this was a good representation of what one should be like. It has given me the inspiration to try and make my own version of tea eggs. When I do I will share it on the YouTube channel.

For a $1.75 it was ok and was a good protein snack.

Not a lot of people were doing things outside because of how cold it was. The sun did eventually come out, but we were leaving at that point. I think that this year the event just didn't have the same feel as last year due to the weather. It was ok.

2025 Aurora Town Center Lunar New Year Event 1/25/25

 

This was the second for the day that we attended. It was held on the bottom floor in the open space between Dillard's and Macy's.

One of the things that people could do was take a selfie in front of this banner, and if they posted it on social media tagging the mall they could have a chance to win a prize. The also had a drawing for prizes and to get tickets you had to show receipts from participating Asian business for at least $25. I walked around Minso, but couldn't find anything I wanted to get to get me to the minimum purchase requirement.

While people waited for the performances to start they had craft tables set up with different craft kits.

The instructions were included in each pack. The below photo is of a completed snow globe (my favorite of the lot).

The first act was Crown Dance Crew doing K-pop dances.

Then came the main show presented by Guiding Mountain.

This crew is one of the majors groups that you will see doing the lion dance around the Denver Metro area.

I feel like this is a new dragon for the group. The past one you couldn't see through. 

I liked how they included the additional costumes for this performance and not just the lion ones.

Overall, I liked this event. I wouldsay that they could expand it a little by bring in Asian food. This would also be a great way to support small businesses if they let people rent tables to vend food or other products. It felt empty when compared to other events in both people and what there was to do. It was snowing, but not bad enough to stop people going out.

2025 Lunar New Year Celebrations for Your Calendar

There are many events in Colorado that celebrate Lunar New Year. Below are some of the ones in the Denver metro area. I'm only focusing on free ones r mostly free ones this year. There are also a lot of cultural performances that have tickets from $10 to several hundred. Some even include a 10 course dinner, but those I feel are so pricy that most people can't access them due to the cost. I like to support free events that give more people a chance to learn about and enjoy the different cultures in Colorado.

January 25th

George Washington High School, 655 S. Monaco St Pkwy, 10:30am-3:30pm

This is a great little event that I have been to now for the last 2 years. The event is free to get in. The do have people selling goods and food. There are also companies there, like banks, giving away stuff to advertise their businesses. The food is in the cafeteria and last year it took them a long time to get set up.

Town Center at Aurora (AKA Aurora Mall), 14200 E. Alameda Ave, 2pm-5pm. More Info at: https://towncenterataurora.com/events/lunar-new-year-celebration-at-town-center-at-aurora/

January 26th

On Havana Street Lunar New Year Celebration, At the Stampede 2430 S. Havana St, 12pm-6pm. For more info: https://onhavanastreet.com/events/2025-lunar-new-year-on-havana-street/

I've gone to this event for a couple of years as well. Make sure to have cash with you. In the past a lot of this event has been outside so make sure you dress warm and remember that the weather may impact parts of this event since it is supposed to snow this year.

February 1st-2nd

Far East Center Lunar New Year, 333 S. Federal Blvd, 11am-4pm, For more info check out https://www.denver.org/event/far-east-center-lunar-new-year-welcome-year-of-the-snake/123042/

I tried to go to this event once and never went back. Parking is horrible. The Far East Center has a super small lot and even parking in the near by neighborhoods is impossible. This event is not ADA friendly. You will have to park miles away and walk or try to fight with public transportation. It is super crowded and people do not watch what they are doing. I say be careful if you are going to attend this event.

February 2nd

Stanley Market Place, Clinton Street, 3:30pm-4:30pm. Just a lion dance performance outside of Chi Lin. Just be careful about your timing for parking. The Stanley has gone from entirely free parking to only giving you 2 hours of free parking. Anything past that you have to pay online for. No pay stations.

Picture 1 From: https://allevents.in/mobile/amp-event.php?event_id=200027638982944

Picture 2 From: Taken by Julia Bilderback at the City of Aurora Public Library main branch.

Picture 3 From: https://onhavanastreet.com/events/2025-lunar-new-year-on-havana-street/

Picture 4 From (Far East Center): https://www.eventbrite.com/e/far-east-center-welcomes-year-of-the-wood-snake-2025-tickets-1109269899129

The Death DEIA in the Federal Government

The below email was sent out to federal staff on 1/22/25. It is interesting that it is call on people to 'out' people in these or related positions. The Republican party say that they don't like Communism, but as someone that has studied history this looks like they are starting to copy the tactics Mao Zedong. They are also going after experts in different fields and replacing them with people that have no idea of what they are doing. Mao did this. This is why studying history is so important.

MESSAGE FROM THE ACTING SECRETARY

 

 

We are taking steps to close all agency diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) offices and end all DEIA-related contracts in accordance with President Trump’s executive orders titled Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing and Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions.

 

These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.

 

We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language. If you are aware of a change in any contract description or personnel position description since November 5, 2024, to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies, please report all facts and circumstances to DEIAtruth@opm.gov within 10 days.

 

There will be no adverse consequences for timely reporting this information. However, failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences.

 

In addition to the above, all personnel are directed to withdraw any final or pending documents, directives, orders, materials, and equity plans issued by the agency in response to now-repealed Executive Order 14035, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) in the Federal Workforce (June 25, 2021). These actions must be taken immediately, but no later than January 31, 2025.

 

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

 

Todd B. Hunter

Acting Secretary 

2025 Lunar New Year Costco Finds

  

I find it interesting how international foods and holidays are going mainstream. In the past it was hard to find products, but now there are so many to choose from with many large stores, like CostCo, having a large variety of products. This article looks at some of the CostCo products I tried this year.

Sushi Bake! Heat & Eat

I grabbed this because I though it would make a quick dinner. There are fried sushi rolls that are served to you hot, so I didn't think of this being to weird of a concept. I could also see this product as a way to expand the palette of a person who doesn't like the concept of raw fish. A gateway drug in a way.

The product was ok. It came with eel sauce and shredded seaweed that you could put on top. It was very dry and the box only gave 4 servings as a main course and you would need to pair it with a side or two. Maybe a miso soup you could dunk it in to rehydrate it. I tried it once, but don't think I would buy it again.

Kunin Rigato Mix

I pop rice cracker mixes like some people do trail mix. What caught my attention about this product is that on the back it tells you what each piece is. I have never seen this before on any rice Cracker mix. The flavors seemed different from the other mixes I've tried.

A lot of times I only try a product once, mostly because either there are so many other things to try or the product just isn't that good. These were so good that I had to go back and grab another bag before they stopped selling them for the season. In this mix my top two favorite pieces were the cheese wheels and the chili mochi. I found myself picking out all of the cheese wheels before other people in my household could eat all of them. Sorry...not sorry.

Vonbee Honey Citron & Ginger Tea

This product is one of the best things I have ever found at a wholesale store. I got to try this in the store as a sample. I was confused on why the prepper was adding hot water to jam. This product really does resemble jam, but it makes an amazing drink. Most of the time when I try samples in the store I just walk off, but I grabbed a jar of this. I would recommend using 2.5 Table spoons full to a 12oz cup. I pay a lot for boba drinks and other drinks at places like Starbucks, but none of them have anything that can compete with this. I found myself saving money by not going out to get drinks and just using this stuff. The huge jars were $9.99 at my store and I know I got more than 20 servings out of it. This means I was paying 50 cents or less per serving when compared to drinks at restaurants that run $4-10. You can also cook with it as well and I plan to make a chicken dish like orange chicken with it. This product was so good that when my family went back to get more before they stop selling it for the season, that we bought 4 more bottles in the hopes that would just get us to the summer season. This product I can not recommend enough.

Tropical Fields Candies Mochi Gummies

These I also got to try as a free sample. My cup only had 2 of the 3 flavors. They were ok, but not worth me buying.

Pop & Bottle Organic Matcha Green Tea

Super drying. I thought that the almond milk would smooth it out, but I felt like I needed to drink a pint of water after I finished my little sample cup. This is a product that I would avoid.

Truffettes de France

I had seen this product in a TikTok video and I thought that the tin was soo cute that I didn't care about the quality of the product for the price they were charging. I just wanted the tin. The tin does not have a flat bottom and kind of wobbles. You had your choice between a red lion or a gold one. I went with the red since it had the best color contrast. The truffles were actually good, but you have to like a dry dark chocolate. They did have a slightly bitter taste and had coco powder on the outside. I ended up having a hard time to not keep popping them. In the tin you get two bags filled with loose truffles (they were not individually wrapped).

Overall, my adventures with the CostCo products for Lunar New Year went well and I'm curious to see what they bring back next year and what new products they will get.