Happy New Year!

Happy late holidays! They have come and gone in a flash.  Before I knew it, I was tossing out all of the crinkled holiday song papers. We were pushed to teach the children all about Santa and Christmas, teaching them thirty special words on top of their normal vocabulary words, plus songs and stories. We were to perform them during Christmas, first at local businesses, and then just in the lobby, but it never happened. Surprise, surprise. The students of course were very disappointed to find out that they had not received anything from Santa. I felt like a missionary.

Some students did receive Christmas cards from Santa. The ones from Germany were actually written in English, the cards from Norway weren’t. All of the cards were very generic, except for a couple of post scripts on the cards from Canada which answered various strange questions the children had asked Santa.

Before Christmas, we had a school dinner. Matt was too ill to attend, so I went with Jenny. We all sat, making awkward conversation until the food arrived. We ate at a restaurant that has become famous in Taiwan. Apparently, it is all cooked somewhere else, packaged, and then delivered to the restaurant to be heated up upon ordering, much like airplane food, and it tastes similar too. Apparently, this is so you can get the feel of a nice cooked-to-order restaurant without the wait, sure.

 The conversation kind of picked up after dinner, mostly with news about my co-worker’s upcoming wedding in Bali before Chinese New Year. Apparently, Chinese New Year is THE season to get married in Taiwan. The saying goes, it is warmer with two in a bed than one. To which I stuck my foot in my mouth and replied that it would be cheaper to buy a heater… dead silence until the boss got it. I don’t think the co-worker has forgiven me yet. We opened presents from our revealed secret Santas. Jenny was my secret Santa, so I got nail polish. Matt got a scarf from his secret Santa. My co-worker forgot to buy the boss something, so he sat alone, giftless.

The next day, the girls took me out to eat hot pot. It was a fun day, where little bits of gossip were translated into English now and again so I could “understand” what they were talking about. But it was fun and I got a free meal as well as some more gifts.

Matt and I treated ourselves to the new Hobbit movie in 3D where we missed the first few minutes because of people coming in to the theatre late, cellophane wrapped popcorn, and just people having to chit chat about whatever. The cellophane and cell phones continued throughout the movie, much to my annoyance, so I went to the bathroom and stomped my heels down each step (we were at the top of the theatre) and I made as much noise going back to my seat. Not that it really mattered, because everyone was reading the subtitles anyway and laughing at the gruesome beheadings.

I was surprised to find out that we had a day off on New Year’s Day. Thankfully, I found out New Year’s Eve as I was leaving work. Matt and I spent our day off wandering around Taichung. We ate Mexican food and Matt played Time Crisis, while I watched. I played a terrible game of air hockey, but how good can you be when there are four pucks coming at you at once? We topped off the New Year with a buy one, get one Cold Stone—talk about calorie overload!  

Spent Saturday with the boss. He wanted to make up for Matt missing the “feast” so he made a “register” at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, Nantou County. We wound along tiny raised county roads to this European-style house that had been turned into a restaurant. The walls were bare concrete inside, but artwork lined the walls, and a baby grand sat in the corner. The food was Taiwanese, but it wasn’t so bad. After eating, the boss took us to a local craft park, which was just a gallery of expensive rocks painted like cats, pottery, woven grass figurines, and blue- dyed clothing.

People have been commenting on how wet Taipei is at the moment. I cannot even imagine! This place is so damp! A backpack hasn’t been moved in two days and it is completely covered in mold! Shoes become moldy in two days, tops become smelly very quickly. I don’t know how people live like this!