Halloween Parties for Adults: Texas Style

You say you need a drink on Halloween Eve?

The Dallas-Fort Worth area has a listing of Halloween parties held at popular nightclubs. Adults have a chance to join in the fun by wearing ghoulish costumes and getting wicked until the late hours of the night. In Dallas, Trees and Buddha 9 will hold parties from 8 pm until 2 am. For those who would like to party in Fort Worth, Scat Jazz Lounge will cater to your Halloween Eve dancing. Additionally, what better place to find free live music events than in Halloween theme parks themselves? Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington, for instance, holds its yearly Howl-o-Ween top 10 countdown at the Fright Fest’s Majestic Theatre. They perform songs by Aerosmith, KISS, Kelly Clarkson, and other popular and classic rock bands. If street dancing is your thing, you can join Mr. Six Spectacular Street Party, where a mix of favorite Halloween party music will rock the night.

But it doesn’t have to be costume parties and late night drinking. You can get a whole lot of Halloween ideas by checking out Halloween Events 2009.

Texas in September: Wine, Hotdogs, Music, Party!

Okay, here’s a question: If you are spending September in Texas, what is there to do besides hanging out at the waterparks? (FYI: Texas has really the best waterparks in US, if you’ve never heard of Schlitterbahn). Anyways, I digress. It will still be hot at this time of the year, but you can beat the heat by checking out the events that rock in this corner of the globe.

First, the Marfa Lights Festival. Marfa may not be the biggest, most exciting town in Texas but it has its share of glory — in the form of out-of-this-world skylights that occur in September. Everybody in town celebrates with parade, music, barbecue, and good ol’ Texas partying. Labor Day weekend is usually the time the Marfan residents celebrate this event.

Then, there’s the Grapefest. How can you be in the Dallas area if you’ve never tried to join this world renowned event? Shame on you! And yet even non-Dallasites come around to be part of the grape stomping and a gazillion other contests. This North Texas event is hardly overrated — there are indeed so much good stuff to check out. Wines? Of course. Painting, golf, carnival, stage shows…and everything in between. Be warned it can get crowded, especially on Thursday and Friday (September 17-18) when admission is free.

If it’s music, music, and more music that you want, head south for Corpus Christi. On September 25th to 27th our folks from Southern Texas are celebrating the Bayfest. What’s better than hobnobbing by the shoreline listening to bands big and small with the sound of waves in the background? What’s nicer than a mere $7 ticket to get in? The Bayfest homepage can help you where to find a great hotel to stay at, where to park, food vendor information, and a guide to the musical performers throughout the week. Can’t wait to party?

Now, I’ve saved the best for last. Texas won’t be without the biggest event ever: the State Fair of Texas. Another one of those events Dallasites should be proud of. It runs from the last week of September to mid-October. Perfect time for the start of autumn, when the weather is starting to mellow down to eighties. Car shows, livestock exhibits, arts and crafts, wines, corn dog contests, ice cream, carnival…this is truly an event for the whole family. The Big Tex is waiting out there!

September is truly never a boring month for Texans and visitors alike. There’s plenty of stuff to do in the Lone Star state. Whether you live in the north, or on the south, there is one more room for your family in the events. It’s truly hot out here, with sizzling events even non-Texans can enjoy!

Our Dallas Asian Market has moved again!

Asian Market goodies

We seriously got lost trying to find the Asian market that we always frequent whenever we go to Dallas. Apparently they kept changing locations. This time around, the owner of the Vietnamese restaurant in that same square where the Asian grocery was located said it moved about a mile from their original location. So we drove over to check it.

Although it’s not the same Asian market that we were used to (the original one was bigger), Joe was able to score some huge blue crabs. I got my lumpia wrappers and Mang Tomas lechon sauce. Always, even though there were some old stuff missing, there were some new stuff on the shelves. I took my seasonings, noodles and Mung Bean soup mix. Everything else in the store looked foreign to me.

When we come back, we hope that the Asian market would branch out and occupy the other building next to where they moved now. Who knows what new exotic Asian stuff we may find there!

Dallas Traders Village – Buy, Sell, Socialize

Part of our plan the next morning (Sunday) before heading home was to get some fruits at the Mexican (La Marketa) produce market and some Asian goodies at the Vietnamese market. We unfortunately had to spend an hour driving around the entire Dallas uptown, downtown, and areas around the highway where we could eat some breakfast. There was none in sight. We finally gave up and saw a Krispy Kreme store by the highway. There was an organic market near it with a cafe, so we ate there instead. A two-person band was playing acoustic music while I savored my Mediterranean Chicken Roll-up and bisque soup. Everybody else seemed vegetarian. They even put cucumber slices on the water dispenser. Talk about being green!

We were making “green” jokes about it (pun intended!) until Joe had the idea of bringing me to Traders Village.

My advice is that if you go on a Sunday at Traders Village, expect to crawl through traffic. When we got there, I didn’t realize how massive it was. You couldn’t see the one end of the market to the other. Even if you thought you have walked all over the place and seen everything, consider yourself mistaken. Traders Village is a congregation of mostly Mexican vendors with oodles of Chinese (bootleg?) products. There were some good stuff worth checking out, but I couldn’t find any shoes to buy! I had wanted to get some because I was wearing big leather boots that were unfit for walking, especially at the gigantic Traders Village grounds. How ironic at such a big market there was nothing for me!

I realized Traders Village is a more expensive version of the real Asian/Chinese flea market, except that the vendors were Mexicans (or Indians) and the mostly Hispanic crowd visit the place to socialize with friends and fellow traders.