Mekong Plaza Restaurant / Buddhist Vegetarian New Year

Dorothy and I played piano / keyboard for the local Buddhist vegetarian Chinese New Year party at Makong Plaza Restaurant last night.  My camera would not work, however, so I have no footage. I led a sing along of Gong Xi Gong Xi at one point, sung in English while Dorothy played. The following is someone else's 20 sec. clip of the room which is a combination restaurant / food court. The space was rented out to a wedding party at the last minute so our group was moved to the back into food court area where they built a second stage in about an hour. Our piano area got squeezed between the stage and the first table. It was very difficult to set up but we managed to do okay.

mekong plaza restaurant - Google Search

The car we're now using is an updated 1997 Ford Escort because the 1996 Ford Taurus collapsed on me last August-- both the motor and the transmission. The Escort is smaller but I still managed to fit in all our gear to do our gigs. There is more road noise and the 4 cylinder engine can be heard much more than the 6 in the Taurus. On the freeway, I run it at about 67 mph. Many of the newer and bigger cars and other types of vehicles on the road these days run about 75 mph so it's a bit crazy.


When I bought this Escort, it ran and looked good but as things evolved, it needed work... a substantial amount actually. I paid for it out of my personal credit when I really should have used car-credit from a car-company. I always bought cars for cash not thinking to apply for car-credit. Now I'm trying for more car-credit for my next car if this Escort goes down on me.