The New Year (Part The First)

In Which Western Holidays Are Documented

First, of course, you all must indulge me in a small bit of reminiscence - as far back as mid-December!  The Christmas decorations in Taiwan started going up before that, of course, but I'm only willing to delve so far into nostalgia -- even in the spirit of seasonal goodwill.  

I went with Sarah to a Chrysanthemum show a while back, and am finally putting up a few of the pictures.  It was surreal and dim, but lovely in the way that gardens are at night.  We wandered around for a while before coming back to join Katy for a game night we ended up not attending.  That was the last extra-curricular thing I took pictures of for a little while, apart from the views to and from work every day.

The daily commute featured such things as Strange Wall Decor, Stores With Dubious Wares, my students' Writing Books, Buildings, the Santa Clause Bus Drivers (none too pleased), and Sunset.

Sarah and I went out to dinner at a thoroughly charming little restaurant that reminded me in a not unpleasant way of the Black Cat Café in Ashland.  On our way there we were dizzied by one church's display of Faith and Electricity in honor of the season.  We ate and talked, and determined to return someday (we haven't yet, but we've been unavoidably distracted by other things - like holidays).  On our way back, Sarah declared her desire to introduce me to a friend of hers (I believe I mentioned him in an earlier post), Xie Yu-Cheng.  I met with him for a lovely dinner shortly thereafter and we have been having charming and extremely helpful (for me, at least) exchanges since.

My A10 class had a unit on ghosts, so I told them the story of Taily-Po.  Ann, the oldest girl (14) started out skittish, and when I got to the point where the story goes "Boo!" everyone jumped.  But Ann screamed.  It wasn't a little shriek of startlement, either, it was an outright scream.  One of the teachers next door stuck his head round, and I reassured him.  The rest of the class thought it was hilarious.  To my delight, about five minutes later the quietest girl in class pulled the balcony curtain aside a little, peered out, and said in Ann's general direction, "Oh! What's that?"  For the first time, that class was unified and interested.  They spent the break drawing their rendition of the monster.

On the twenty-third, there was a new addition to Taiwan from their mainland cousin, commemorated by very cute bread-things in the local bakeries.

We had a quiet and homey Christmas/Chanukah dinner.  Katy and I made dinner and invited Sarah and Jenny to join us.  We had mashed potatoes and squash and latkes (I made them in a wok) before opening presents under the bamboo-cum-Christmas-tree and lighting the menorah (while wearing a Santa hat).  Oh, we are so terribly multicultural it hurts.

I had dinner with Yu-Cheng on New Year's Eve, then went to Sarah's house to see the fireworks.  Her family's apartment building has a roof from which there's a pretty clear view of Taipei 101, and at midnight there were a lot of fireworks off of the building.  I'm not entirely certain of how to take photos of fireworks at night - anyone with input is welcome to advise.

New Year's Day, I went to Da'an Park with Sarah and her family.  There were a lot of flowers.  We met up with Jenny and Katy and went back to Sarah's house to bake cookies.  They were delicious.  Cranberries and chocolate chips and coconut and walnuts and lip-smacking goodness.  I do like making cookies.

Further New Year updates when Chinese New Year comes around.  In the mean time, our friend Hobbes is coming to visit (hi, Hobbes!) for a week or so very soon.  Our first visitor!

Adventures Out and About

We have (clearly) found a coffee shop with wifi, purchased some funny little squares of what could, with some ingenuity, be toilet paper, procured a towel and Taiwan money, and we wandered around hot and cranky yesterday until we found food - first a sandwich (pre-monies, with a xìnyòngkǎ) and then some very tasty soup in a hole-in-the-wall just around the corner from our apartment.  Post-soup we came home and passed out for four hours before heading out with our two apartment-mates to find a bar and some Taiwan Pijiu.  

The bar was small, and I knew the minute we walked in that it was not frequented by wàiguórén.  We were taken to the largest table and seated and fawned over.  There was a gentleman who sat with us and made much of us, talking in English when he could.  Another wore paint on his face to imitate the aboriginal culture of Taiwan - I'm not sure what, Haka, perhaps - and another wore a dress and a wig and false anatomy.  They danced and sang, as did the other patrons, and even we got up and sang karaoke at one point.  The patrons and staff sat with us by turns - it was a little hard to tell who was which - and food kept appearing on the table.  Greens ("not typical Taiwan food," we were assured, but "like the food of your Native Americans." Kudos to those who warned about this.) and fish and an omelet thing.  The English-speaking man repeatedly offered to hook us up with "muscle men," the cue for Painted Face to start flexing and pouting at us.  We declined.  At the end of the evening, while I was trying to settle our bill, the lady of the establishment proclaimed her love for me and presented each of us with a bouquet of 9 roses.  We walked back to our apartment waving our tourist banners and trying to process.  Katy found a pitcher in the cabinet in the kitchen, and we stuck 3 of the bouquets in it and set it out on the living room table.

Today we met with a lovely lady from Kojen, who will be meeting us again shortly to take us to the hospital so that we can have our exams for our work permits.  We had lunch at a small buffet with a bunch of vegetarian food that I mostly did not recognize, but all of it was pretty tasty.