Mom and I had a wonderful visit over the two weeks she was in Taipei and we traveled to Hong Kong together. Taipei is not the same city it was when Mom lived here from first grade through fourth grade. The area where their house was just outside the city, where water buffalos roamed in the rice farm next to their house is literally downtown nowadays. The two things she did recognized were the Grand Hotel pool where she swam as a kid and Fu Jen University where her Mom taught English conversation. I did let her venture onto the MRT (metro system) by herself while I was at work one afternoon so she could see Longshan Temple. She didn’t get lost (probably due to my full page sheet of directions). I had a great time showing her around Taipei and am glad that she saw what my life is like here! We had a nice day trip out to one of my favorite spots outside of town, Jiufen. We had afternoon tea at the Jiufen teahouse which I’d been to back in October. We also had tea at the Grand Hotel (we drank a heck of a lot of tea during her visit.) We stayed in a very nice hotel downtown for some of her time in Taipei which was a nice treat for me. I felt like I was on vacation, too! She was also able to meet a bunch of my friends at dinner one night which was really fun.
We had a fabulous time in Hong Kong. It was a really good break for me because it is SO western (a former British territory, after all.) It was also cool for Mom to go back since she’d lived there from fifth grade through eighth grade. The first full day we had we spent in the area she used to live, Repulse Bay, just outside the city. We started out in Stanley Market, just down the road from RB. I bought a traditional Chinese dress and some other Chinese stuff. Then we headed to Mom’s old neighborhood and were excited to see that her old apartment complex, Repulse Bay Mansions, was still standing (in the shadows of the other huge buildings around it). It’s a pretty small complex, and RB is very built up now, quite a change from her time there. After sneaking up the private steps Mom was proud of remembering, and having the security guard try to shew us away, we took some great pictures, and I think it’s really neat that I’ve now been to all four places she lived abroad: Paris, Taipei, HK and London. We also walked out onto the beach and went to the famous RB Hotel which was torn down and rebuilt since Mom’s time there.
On our second full day we took the tram up to the highest peak in HK, Victoria Peak. The view of the city from the top was amazing!! We then ventured over to the Kowloon Island side to the Ladies’ Market (for my fix of fake luxury goods! I finally own a “Louis Vuitton”). Mom was really impressed with my newly perfected bargaining skills. After that it was on to tea and a visit to the Man Mo temple, one of the most popular temples in HK. It was pretty busy since it was Chinese New Year, so that was neat to see. I’ve stepped foot in quite a lot of temples, and I thought this one was one of the prettiest I’ve seen. That evening we had a really good French dinner. (No Chinese food was allowed on this trip-I’m not a fan.)
The next day we went to mass at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church where Mom went as a kid. The priest was an American with a good sense of humor, so that was nice. Then we went to Aberdeen, a fishing village, for a Sampan boat tour. We saw a bunch of the fishing village, houseboats, etc, and also the largest floating restaurant in the world. We also visited the HK “zoo” and botanical gardens. I use the term zoo lightly…there were some flamingos and a few other birds. The flowers were gorgeous though, and it was nice to walk around. And then of course we had afternoon tea, this time at the Regal Hotel in Causeway Bay, and visited another temple, the Tinhau Temple. This was the afternoon I decided we needed to take the tram (double decker street cars which run up and down one of the main roads in HK). Mom didn’t like the experience too much—they’re really cheap which means they’re really crowded, but I liked riding on the top deck and getting that view of the city. That evening we took the Star Ferry a short trip across the harbor to the Kowloon side. The view is beautiful with all of the buildings lit up at night, some with New Years decorations. There’s a light show every night at 8pm and we saw that from the Kowloon side. And the next day we took the same ferry, but this time for an hour long harbor tour which was cool, too. Overall, Mom and I had such a great time together, both in Taipei and HK. I was very sad to see her go! And of course, check out my pictures of her visit and our trip on my photo site.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Happy Chinese New Year!
(A little early.) Chinese New Year begins Feb. 6 and continues for several days. It’s the biggest holiday over here (equivalent to our Christmas, if not bigger.) Everyone has vacation from work and travels back to their hometowns to see their families. They have large family dinners, exchange gifts, and the adults give the children “lucky money” in red envelopes. To get ready for the new year people clean their houses and buy new clothes. They also post poems on red paper outside the doors of their homes. There are parades, fireworks and other festivities during the new year celebrations.
For the past week I have been extra busy with work. The kids have their winter breaks from their Chinese schools, so they’re coming to English school for extra classes. On top of my regular 12 afternoon/evening classes, I have been teaching a writing composition class from 1:30-4:00 everyday. It began last week and goes through this week. The kids range in age from about 11-13. I have a basic lesson plan, but have been able to get a bit more creative with what I’m doing which has been nice, as my regular classes are very much by the book. Last week they wrote an essay about holidays. Many of them wrote about Chinese new year which was good for me since I don’t know too much about the traditions and meanings. Teaching this class has been a good experience. This week they’ll be writing a letters to friends and then their final project will be to write short stories in groups.
Overall life is good in Taipei. I’m continuing to stay very busy with friends doing stuff around the city. After feeling guilty for not having done something “cultury” in a while, I went to the Taipei Fine Arts Museum with a couple of friends last weekend. That was pretty cool and they had some interesting exhibits. One temporary exhibit was art by this German guy who writes poetry to go along with his pieces. They also had a huge exhibit of Taiwan Surrealist paintings which was really cool. After Chinese New Year some friends and I are going to start a tango class on Sunday afternoons. So random, I know! I went to see the class last week and it looks pretty fun. Not sure how great I’m going to be at it, but hopefully they won’t move too fast. I’m continuing to meet with my language exchange partner each week. Things are going well with that. I really never expected to get much from it, but it’s a good experience. I’m learning little phrases here and there. This past week I worked on numbers a bit. I know 1-10, but really didn’t know how to say numbers much higher than that, so we practiced and I caught on pretty quickly. For her English part, she brings a consumer/business magazine which is partly in English. She will have read the article beforehand and underlined vocabulary she doesn’t know. Then I read the article out loud and we go over the vocabulary as we read. A few weeks ago we read an article about how the iphone works which was actually pretty interesting!
Mom arrives on Wednesday! I can’t wait! We’re going to stay at a hotel downtown for four nights over the weekend, and then we’re off to Hong Kong Feb. 7-11. I hope to take a couple of short day trips while she’s in Taipei, but also just go around the city. In Hong Kong we’ll do some sightseeing (take the tram up the highest peak on the island, take the ferry around the harbor at night, etc), do some shopping (of course!) and visit her old ‘hood, Repulse Bay.
For the past week I have been extra busy with work. The kids have their winter breaks from their Chinese schools, so they’re coming to English school for extra classes. On top of my regular 12 afternoon/evening classes, I have been teaching a writing composition class from 1:30-4:00 everyday. It began last week and goes through this week. The kids range in age from about 11-13. I have a basic lesson plan, but have been able to get a bit more creative with what I’m doing which has been nice, as my regular classes are very much by the book. Last week they wrote an essay about holidays. Many of them wrote about Chinese new year which was good for me since I don’t know too much about the traditions and meanings. Teaching this class has been a good experience. This week they’ll be writing a letters to friends and then their final project will be to write short stories in groups.
Overall life is good in Taipei. I’m continuing to stay very busy with friends doing stuff around the city. After feeling guilty for not having done something “cultury” in a while, I went to the Taipei Fine Arts Museum with a couple of friends last weekend. That was pretty cool and they had some interesting exhibits. One temporary exhibit was art by this German guy who writes poetry to go along with his pieces. They also had a huge exhibit of Taiwan Surrealist paintings which was really cool. After Chinese New Year some friends and I are going to start a tango class on Sunday afternoons. So random, I know! I went to see the class last week and it looks pretty fun. Not sure how great I’m going to be at it, but hopefully they won’t move too fast. I’m continuing to meet with my language exchange partner each week. Things are going well with that. I really never expected to get much from it, but it’s a good experience. I’m learning little phrases here and there. This past week I worked on numbers a bit. I know 1-10, but really didn’t know how to say numbers much higher than that, so we practiced and I caught on pretty quickly. For her English part, she brings a consumer/business magazine which is partly in English. She will have read the article beforehand and underlined vocabulary she doesn’t know. Then I read the article out loud and we go over the vocabulary as we read. A few weeks ago we read an article about how the iphone works which was actually pretty interesting!
Mom arrives on Wednesday! I can’t wait! We’re going to stay at a hotel downtown for four nights over the weekend, and then we’re off to Hong Kong Feb. 7-11. I hope to take a couple of short day trips while she’s in Taipei, but also just go around the city. In Hong Kong we’ll do some sightseeing (take the tram up the highest peak on the island, take the ferry around the harbor at night, etc), do some shopping (of course!) and visit her old ‘hood, Repulse Bay.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
The adventures of Charlie & Annie in Taiwan
Charlie and I had so much fun during his time here. He saw a lot, but we also had time to just hang out and relax. So it was perfect. The first weekend he was here in Taipei we went up in Taipei 101 (currently the world’s tallest building, everyone in Taipei is so proud). It wasn’t the clearest day ever, but we could see a good bit. One of the coolest things, though, is that you get to the top by the world’s fastest elevator. It’s pretty awesome! We also went to the National Palace Museum, which is the equivalent to the Louvre and the British museum for Chinese artifacts. It’s absolutely huge. We took the hour and a half English tour which was a good introduction to the museum, but there is still so much to see and I definitely plan to go back. We really enjoyed the garden they have outside the museum, full of little pavilions, ponds, bridges and various animals.
We spent New Year’s Eve day at the Taipei Zoo which was so much fun! The zoo is fabulous, probably one of the best, if not the best, I’ve been to (maybe even better than D.C.) It’s huge. I was especially excited to see the koalas and the two hump camels. (But, I was disappointed that the kangaroos weren’t out while we were in there area. ) It was an unusually cold day, so many of the animals (especially the apes) were huddling together. It was kind of cute and sad at the same time. One of the apes had even put a rag over himself in an attempt to keep warm while huddled in his cave! That night, for New Year’s, we met up with some of my friends for the fireworks at Taipei 101. They were amazing! They actually shoot them off from the building and it’s quite a show. Definitely far, far surpassed anything I’ve ever seen in D.C. for July 4th fireworks. We sat about a block away from the building, so that made it even cooler.
The next day we were off to the southern tip of Taiwan to a beach town called Kenting. We took the relatively new high speed train which gets you from Taipei, almost at the northern tip, to Kaohsiung in the south, in an hour and a half. It takes about 6 hours by regular train to make the same trip. After haggling with the taxi drivers, we finally got a good deal, and made our way to Kenting. We stayed in an area called Nanwan Beach just outside the town of Kenting. Our hotel was awesome ($45US per night for a very nice hotel just like back home). Oh yea, and did I mention the ocean view from the room? It was amazing! The staff was really helpful and we set up our scooter rental for the following two days. The weather was warm (70’s), so it was really pleasant to be on the scooter, even with the wind blowing. The whole area is a national park and forest recreation area. On our first full day we drove in a huge loop which was mostly right along the coast. Our first stop was Erluanbi which is about 15 minutes from Kenting. This is where you can walk out to the official southern tip of the island. After that we made our way north up the coast. The water is a gorgeous blue, and most of the coast has coral rock formations. We stopped several times for pictures. It’s really nice because especially at this time of year it’s not crowded down there and there’s hardly any traffic. There’s an area of the coast, Jialeshui, where some of the rock formations look like animals. We ended up taking this ride up a bit of the coast on a open air bus/cart thing. I don’t even know what you call it! The driver was announcing, in Chinese of course, what the formations were supposed to be as we passed them. We had no clue what was going on, and honestly I think that thinking that these formations looked like animals was a bit of a stretch in most cases. But nonetheless, it was fun, and the water and the rocks were beautiful, of course. After that we started driving inland and making the rest of the loop back to Kenting. That part of the drive was interesting and pretty, as well. It was mostly rice fields and mountain views. It’s cool to go through some of those tiny little “towns” out in the middle of nowhere. Later that evening we went up to a hot spring village called Sichongshi about 30 minutes away. It’s a town full of hotels dedicated to hot springs. We found a really nice one and about 20 minutes after we got there everyone left, so we had it pretty much to ourselves. There are various pools some cool, some warm and some really, really hot. We sat in the second hottest one (a bit hotter than a regular hot tub) for the whole time. Charlie hopped into the cool pool a couple of times, though, which apparently feels good after having been in the really hot one, but I couldn’t take the cold.
The next day we went to the Aquarium (officially the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium). It’s huge and extremely modern and nice! It also sits right on the ocean, so it’s beautiful. We were there on a weekday, so it was very empty and we managed to get in between the huge school groups. In some parts we had the place completely to ourselves. There are three different main areas: Coral Kingdom, Waters of Taiwan, and Waters of the World. The coral area was the coolest. There’s a huge tunnel you can walk through with the fish swimming all over. There’s also a sunken ship where it was interesting to watch the different kinds of fish swimming together and interacting. The coolest (literally and figuratively) part of the world waters area was the penguin area. The viewing area was much better than any zoo I’ve been to and you could even hear them making sounds. The beluga whales were also really cool to watch. After the aquarium we did most of the drive along the coast that we had done the day before. At one point we stopped at a beach area and I was in the water up to my knees. The water was so warm! (We could have spent the day on the beach, but had decided that we wanted to do things and take in the scenery instead of sit on the beach.) Charlie did all the scooter driving, but I also had a short scooter lesson in an empty parking lot. I sort of got the hang of it, but it’s hard!
We had a couple of great meals in Kenting. We ate at a couple of very nice western style restaurants. I ate mostly curry dishes, and Charlie had beef and rice mostly. It’s a very popular destination in the summer, but much slower in the winter, so everywhere we ate we were almost the only ones in the restaurant! Overall, Kenting was amazing. It was Charlie’s most favorite part of his trip out here, and definitely mine, too.
Back in Taipei, I wanted to show him some stuff I’d been to before. We went to Longshan Temple which is right in the city, rode the Maokong Gondola (without incident this time!), and went to the Jade Market. We also went to Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. I’d been on the outside several times, but the inside had been closed for renovation since I got here, so I hadn’t been up in it yet. So that was really neat. I think that memorial and the gardens around it is my most favorite site in Taipei. We also went up to Danshui, which is north of the city and along the ocean. We walked around mostly and took a ferry to Fisherman’s Wharf which was a beautiful place to sit by the water. It’s amazing to watch the sun set up there.
Charlie and I had a wonderful time. I am glad that he was able to see some of Taiwan and what my life is like over here! Now it’s time to gear up for my next visitor. Mom arrives in about two and a half weeks. I can’t wait to see her and for us to go to Honk Kong! It’s hard to believe it will have been six months and that I am just about halfway through my time here. Pictures from Charlie's visit are now up on my site in an album called "Charlie's visit." I condensed the 600 pictures he took into just over 100, so take a look!
We spent New Year’s Eve day at the Taipei Zoo which was so much fun! The zoo is fabulous, probably one of the best, if not the best, I’ve been to (maybe even better than D.C.) It’s huge. I was especially excited to see the koalas and the two hump camels. (But, I was disappointed that the kangaroos weren’t out while we were in there area. ) It was an unusually cold day, so many of the animals (especially the apes) were huddling together. It was kind of cute and sad at the same time. One of the apes had even put a rag over himself in an attempt to keep warm while huddled in his cave! That night, for New Year’s, we met up with some of my friends for the fireworks at Taipei 101. They were amazing! They actually shoot them off from the building and it’s quite a show. Definitely far, far surpassed anything I’ve ever seen in D.C. for July 4th fireworks. We sat about a block away from the building, so that made it even cooler.
The next day we were off to the southern tip of Taiwan to a beach town called Kenting. We took the relatively new high speed train which gets you from Taipei, almost at the northern tip, to Kaohsiung in the south, in an hour and a half. It takes about 6 hours by regular train to make the same trip. After haggling with the taxi drivers, we finally got a good deal, and made our way to Kenting. We stayed in an area called Nanwan Beach just outside the town of Kenting. Our hotel was awesome ($45US per night for a very nice hotel just like back home). Oh yea, and did I mention the ocean view from the room? It was amazing! The staff was really helpful and we set up our scooter rental for the following two days. The weather was warm (70’s), so it was really pleasant to be on the scooter, even with the wind blowing. The whole area is a national park and forest recreation area. On our first full day we drove in a huge loop which was mostly right along the coast. Our first stop was Erluanbi which is about 15 minutes from Kenting. This is where you can walk out to the official southern tip of the island. After that we made our way north up the coast. The water is a gorgeous blue, and most of the coast has coral rock formations. We stopped several times for pictures. It’s really nice because especially at this time of year it’s not crowded down there and there’s hardly any traffic. There’s an area of the coast, Jialeshui, where some of the rock formations look like animals. We ended up taking this ride up a bit of the coast on a open air bus/cart thing. I don’t even know what you call it! The driver was announcing, in Chinese of course, what the formations were supposed to be as we passed them. We had no clue what was going on, and honestly I think that thinking that these formations looked like animals was a bit of a stretch in most cases. But nonetheless, it was fun, and the water and the rocks were beautiful, of course. After that we started driving inland and making the rest of the loop back to Kenting. That part of the drive was interesting and pretty, as well. It was mostly rice fields and mountain views. It’s cool to go through some of those tiny little “towns” out in the middle of nowhere. Later that evening we went up to a hot spring village called Sichongshi about 30 minutes away. It’s a town full of hotels dedicated to hot springs. We found a really nice one and about 20 minutes after we got there everyone left, so we had it pretty much to ourselves. There are various pools some cool, some warm and some really, really hot. We sat in the second hottest one (a bit hotter than a regular hot tub) for the whole time. Charlie hopped into the cool pool a couple of times, though, which apparently feels good after having been in the really hot one, but I couldn’t take the cold.
The next day we went to the Aquarium (officially the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium). It’s huge and extremely modern and nice! It also sits right on the ocean, so it’s beautiful. We were there on a weekday, so it was very empty and we managed to get in between the huge school groups. In some parts we had the place completely to ourselves. There are three different main areas: Coral Kingdom, Waters of Taiwan, and Waters of the World. The coral area was the coolest. There’s a huge tunnel you can walk through with the fish swimming all over. There’s also a sunken ship where it was interesting to watch the different kinds of fish swimming together and interacting. The coolest (literally and figuratively) part of the world waters area was the penguin area. The viewing area was much better than any zoo I’ve been to and you could even hear them making sounds. The beluga whales were also really cool to watch. After the aquarium we did most of the drive along the coast that we had done the day before. At one point we stopped at a beach area and I was in the water up to my knees. The water was so warm! (We could have spent the day on the beach, but had decided that we wanted to do things and take in the scenery instead of sit on the beach.) Charlie did all the scooter driving, but I also had a short scooter lesson in an empty parking lot. I sort of got the hang of it, but it’s hard!
We had a couple of great meals in Kenting. We ate at a couple of very nice western style restaurants. I ate mostly curry dishes, and Charlie had beef and rice mostly. It’s a very popular destination in the summer, but much slower in the winter, so everywhere we ate we were almost the only ones in the restaurant! Overall, Kenting was amazing. It was Charlie’s most favorite part of his trip out here, and definitely mine, too.
Back in Taipei, I wanted to show him some stuff I’d been to before. We went to Longshan Temple which is right in the city, rode the Maokong Gondola (without incident this time!), and went to the Jade Market. We also went to Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. I’d been on the outside several times, but the inside had been closed for renovation since I got here, so I hadn’t been up in it yet. So that was really neat. I think that memorial and the gardens around it is my most favorite site in Taipei. We also went up to Danshui, which is north of the city and along the ocean. We walked around mostly and took a ferry to Fisherman’s Wharf which was a beautiful place to sit by the water. It’s amazing to watch the sun set up there.
Charlie and I had a wonderful time. I am glad that he was able to see some of Taiwan and what my life is like over here! Now it’s time to gear up for my next visitor. Mom arrives in about two and a half weeks. I can’t wait to see her and for us to go to Honk Kong! It’s hard to believe it will have been six months and that I am just about halfway through my time here. Pictures from Charlie's visit are now up on my site in an album called "Charlie's visit." I condensed the 600 pictures he took into just over 100, so take a look!
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Merry Christmas!
Christmas greetings from Taiwan! While you all are opening presents by the tree, my Christmas day is just about over. It was a good one! I had lunch at Chili's with some friends (a lot of my friends went home or elsewhere for the holidays, but some were still here). Someone suggested Chili's half jokingly when we were deciding what to do , but we ended up deciding on that. They import all their food from the U.S. so it's fairly expensive by Taiwan standards, but it was completely worth it since it is just like home. After our meal, which lasted several hours since we had several courses, we did some shopping and then went to look at the holiday lights around Taipei 101 (the downtown financial district). We even came upon a nativity scene surrounded by 45 different pictures depicting Jesus' life. Some of the (very simplistic) pictures were very amusing, and we could only imagine how accurate the Chinese captions were.
Charlie arrives in less than 48 hours. I can't wait! We're off to Kenting on New Year's day for a few days. Kenting is a beach town on the very southern tip of Taiwan. It is also a national park, so there's a lot to do. Other than that we'll be in and around Taipei.
Hope everyone had a great holiday! And, as always, check out my "Around Taipei" album for my new pictures from Christmas.
Charlie arrives in less than 48 hours. I can't wait! We're off to Kenting on New Year's day for a few days. Kenting is a beach town on the very southern tip of Taiwan. It is also a national park, so there's a lot to do. Other than that we'll be in and around Taipei.
Hope everyone had a great holiday! And, as always, check out my "Around Taipei" album for my new pictures from Christmas.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Wedding bells-Taiwanese style and Christmas festivities
It sure has been an eventful couple of weeks for me. The week before last I was sick with a cold I couldn’t get rid of. (As I believe I mentioned in an earlier post, many thanks to extreme changes in weather from one day to the next, as well as kids coming to school sick). So I finally went to the hospital to see a doctor. Health care is very good here and I went to the best hospital in the city, which also happens to be two subway stops from my apartment. The doctors speak English there, thank goodness. So I got myself checked in found where I was supposed to wait and had to wait about an hour for my appointment. The doctor was really good and understood everything I was talking about. He determined that I basically had a bad cold, but that it could get worse if I didn’t take couple days off of work. (So I took last Friday and Saturday off and basically did nothing but sit in bed. It really sucked, but I did finally get better.) He gave me a couple of prescriptions, too, which you pick up at a counter right at the hospital. In total, my doctor visit plus two prescriptions was just under $14US since I get Taiwan national health insurance through my job. I was pretty proud of myself for handling the hospital visit on my own and having no problems.
The Christmas festiveness has started, of course. So far I’ve been to two Christmas events. Some friends and I had a gift exchange last week. We all bought gifts under a certain amount and then did that game where you pick presents based on the number you pick and then you can steal other people’s presents. It was fun and I ended up with some pretty useful gifts. This weekend I went to a Christmas party at a restaurant/bar which was the company party for the school company a lot of my friends work for. It was pretty fancy (white linen table cloths, I’m not used to that anymore.) I had two huge platefuls of amazing western food…Turkey, warm cranberry sauce, potatoes, French bread, vegetables, etc. It was so good!
I also went to a wedding this weekend! My co-worker, Esther, had her wedding banquet which was so much fun! She has actually been technically married for a bit and she and her husband, Scott, have a baby boy. But they had not had their wedding banquet yet. It was at a very nice banquet facility outside the city. I really didn’t know what to expect, but it was pretty much like any western wedding reception, minus the dancing, but with a few different traditions added in.
Tradition #1: Everyone gives the couple cash in red envelopes (red for good luck). There are people at the entrance taking the cash and marking in separate books (one for the bride’s guests and one for the groom’s guests) how much each guest gave. I thought that was a little bit tacky until I was told the reason behind it…that way when the bride and groom go to the weddings of their friends in the future they’re supposed to add on to that amount a little bit more. I like that idea! Too bad I most likely will not be getting married in Taiwan!
Tradition #2: I’m not sure if this is how everyone here does it, but for the opening the bride stood on a little stage in the back of the room while her husband sang a song to her at the front of the room. Halfway through the song he walked back to her and then they entered the room together. Then they did a toast with their parents at the front of the room. They didn’t have a wedding party, but later in the reception a couple of their friends gave speeches.
Tradition #3: Instead of the western tradition of tossing the bouquet, the bride gathers single friends (male and female) around her bouquet and each person grabs a ribbon attached to it. At one time everyone pulls at their ribbon and whosever ribbon remains attached is supposedly the next one to get married. That person turned out to be the toddler next to me who my friend was holding. It was cute because she gave a little message of good luck to the bride and groom in front of everyone.
Tradition #4: The bride changes dresses three, yes three!, times during the banquet. She wears one for the opening, one for the main part, and one for saying goodbye to the guests. Also, the brides friends traditionally get a box of cookies at the coupe’s engagement party. They did not have an engagement party, so the boxes of cookies were given out today. I got one and it’s really elaborate…I’ll be eating cookies for a while!
And of course the big thing was the food, ridiculous amounts of it! Fourteen different types of dishes and soups were brought to our table. They had everything from lintel soup, to shrimp, chicken, cod fish, other types of seafood, to different pastries and desserts. I was so full, I couldn’t eat everything I wanted but I attempted to at least try everything. So all in all my first Taiwanese wedding was such a fun experience! And as always, I have a lot of pictures posted from the wedding on my photo site in my “Around Taipei” album.
Charlie arrives next Thursday, Dec. 27. I can’t believe it’s almost here, I am so excited! I’m working on finalizing plans for our trip. My mom is coming for about two weeks at the beginning of February. I have just finalized plans for that trip. We’ll be going to Hong Kong for about five days during the time I have off for Chinese New Year. Well, that’s it for now. Merry (almost) Christmas!
The Christmas festiveness has started, of course. So far I’ve been to two Christmas events. Some friends and I had a gift exchange last week. We all bought gifts under a certain amount and then did that game where you pick presents based on the number you pick and then you can steal other people’s presents. It was fun and I ended up with some pretty useful gifts. This weekend I went to a Christmas party at a restaurant/bar which was the company party for the school company a lot of my friends work for. It was pretty fancy (white linen table cloths, I’m not used to that anymore.) I had two huge platefuls of amazing western food…Turkey, warm cranberry sauce, potatoes, French bread, vegetables, etc. It was so good!
I also went to a wedding this weekend! My co-worker, Esther, had her wedding banquet which was so much fun! She has actually been technically married for a bit and she and her husband, Scott, have a baby boy. But they had not had their wedding banquet yet. It was at a very nice banquet facility outside the city. I really didn’t know what to expect, but it was pretty much like any western wedding reception, minus the dancing, but with a few different traditions added in.
Tradition #1: Everyone gives the couple cash in red envelopes (red for good luck). There are people at the entrance taking the cash and marking in separate books (one for the bride’s guests and one for the groom’s guests) how much each guest gave. I thought that was a little bit tacky until I was told the reason behind it…that way when the bride and groom go to the weddings of their friends in the future they’re supposed to add on to that amount a little bit more. I like that idea! Too bad I most likely will not be getting married in Taiwan!
Tradition #2: I’m not sure if this is how everyone here does it, but for the opening the bride stood on a little stage in the back of the room while her husband sang a song to her at the front of the room. Halfway through the song he walked back to her and then they entered the room together. Then they did a toast with their parents at the front of the room. They didn’t have a wedding party, but later in the reception a couple of their friends gave speeches.
Tradition #3: Instead of the western tradition of tossing the bouquet, the bride gathers single friends (male and female) around her bouquet and each person grabs a ribbon attached to it. At one time everyone pulls at their ribbon and whosever ribbon remains attached is supposedly the next one to get married. That person turned out to be the toddler next to me who my friend was holding. It was cute because she gave a little message of good luck to the bride and groom in front of everyone.
Tradition #4: The bride changes dresses three, yes three!, times during the banquet. She wears one for the opening, one for the main part, and one for saying goodbye to the guests. Also, the brides friends traditionally get a box of cookies at the coupe’s engagement party. They did not have an engagement party, so the boxes of cookies were given out today. I got one and it’s really elaborate…I’ll be eating cookies for a while!
And of course the big thing was the food, ridiculous amounts of it! Fourteen different types of dishes and soups were brought to our table. They had everything from lintel soup, to shrimp, chicken, cod fish, other types of seafood, to different pastries and desserts. I was so full, I couldn’t eat everything I wanted but I attempted to at least try everything. So all in all my first Taiwanese wedding was such a fun experience! And as always, I have a lot of pictures posted from the wedding on my photo site in my “Around Taipei” album.
Charlie arrives next Thursday, Dec. 27. I can’t believe it’s almost here, I am so excited! I’m working on finalizing plans for our trip. My mom is coming for about two weeks at the beginning of February. I have just finalized plans for that trip. We’ll be going to Hong Kong for about five days during the time I have off for Chinese New Year. Well, that’s it for now. Merry (almost) Christmas!
Monday, December 3, 2007
80 degrees in December?!
You’d never know it was December in Taiwan, today at least. It’s nearly 80 degrees and sunny. I went on a nice run by the river park near my apartment. People were out biking, fishing and playing baseball. I’ve been thinking on and off about buying a bicycle. Recently I’ve been kind of off of the idea, but today makes me want to buy one again. Tonight I went to a barbecue with some friends. It was such a great evening for it! I am trying to get over a cold though because of the ridiculous weather. One day it will be 80 degrees and sunny and the next day it will be 60 degrees and rainy. So because of the variation in weather, probably not helped by the fact that I’m around little kids all the time, I’ve gotten a cold a couple of times already. And I never get sick at home, so it’s annoying!
We have a new roommate in the apartment as of last week. The guy who was living here moved to a different part of the city, and a girl, Kaitlyn, has moved in. She’s another American teacher, from California. So now we have all girls in the apartment…Liz from Kansas (teaching English and studying Chinese), Judy from the Dominican Republic (studying Chinese), Kaitlyn and I.
We got a Christmas tree for our living room. The Taiwanese go crazy for Christmas, so there are Christmas decorations in many stores. I even saw an entire store dedicated to Christmas downtown last weekend , complete with life-sized Santas and blow up decorations. Our tree cost about $4US. All the decorations are extremely tacky here. So we got the basic lights (they’re colored and blink) and Christmas balls. It’s not the classiest tree ever, but it makes it a big more like home and Christmas-like.
Charlie comes in just about three and a half weeks. I can’t wait! He’ll be here Dec. 27-Jan. 8. We are going to take a four day trip down the island. First we’ll go to Tarako Gorge in the central part of the island. It’s really beautiful and one of the most visited places in Taiwan. We’ll rent a car (which is super cheap) and just drive around, and probably do some hiking if the weather is nice. Then we’ll go down to a town at the southern tip of Taiwan called Kenting. It’s on the beach and another of Taiwan’s most popular destinations. I’m not expecting to be able to lay out on the beach, but it will be warmer than it is in the north. It’s actually a national park, so there’s a lot to see and do.
I started my language exchange this week. (I think I mentioned it before.) The girl I’m doing it with is a co-worker of a friend of mine. They work at Sony here in Taipei designing video games. Her English is good, she just wants to practice some conversation. She has a book with different conversation topics which we’ll go through, but we always have good conversation, so I don’t think thinking of things to talk about will be hard. I also told her I would try to find some articles on some of the newspaper sites I read (Washington Post, NY Times, etc) related to art, which she is interested in. So we can read an article and then discuss it when we meet. For my end, I just want to learn some basic phrases and simple conversation. I bought two basic Chinese books, so that way I can pick and choose some of the things I want to learn. Learning languages is not my forte, but I’d really like to be able to communicate better than I can right now! The other night I saw something in a store window and couldn’t find it in the store, so I pointed to it in the window and said “where” in Chinese, and that’s pretty much what my Chinese currently consists of (in addition to “hello,” “yes,” “thank you,” some numbers, and some terms in yoga class.) I'll let you all know how my Chinese is progressing! That's all for now!
We have a new roommate in the apartment as of last week. The guy who was living here moved to a different part of the city, and a girl, Kaitlyn, has moved in. She’s another American teacher, from California. So now we have all girls in the apartment…Liz from Kansas (teaching English and studying Chinese), Judy from the Dominican Republic (studying Chinese), Kaitlyn and I.
We got a Christmas tree for our living room. The Taiwanese go crazy for Christmas, so there are Christmas decorations in many stores. I even saw an entire store dedicated to Christmas downtown last weekend , complete with life-sized Santas and blow up decorations. Our tree cost about $4US. All the decorations are extremely tacky here. So we got the basic lights (they’re colored and blink) and Christmas balls. It’s not the classiest tree ever, but it makes it a big more like home and Christmas-like.
Charlie comes in just about three and a half weeks. I can’t wait! He’ll be here Dec. 27-Jan. 8. We are going to take a four day trip down the island. First we’ll go to Tarako Gorge in the central part of the island. It’s really beautiful and one of the most visited places in Taiwan. We’ll rent a car (which is super cheap) and just drive around, and probably do some hiking if the weather is nice. Then we’ll go down to a town at the southern tip of Taiwan called Kenting. It’s on the beach and another of Taiwan’s most popular destinations. I’m not expecting to be able to lay out on the beach, but it will be warmer than it is in the north. It’s actually a national park, so there’s a lot to see and do.
I started my language exchange this week. (I think I mentioned it before.) The girl I’m doing it with is a co-worker of a friend of mine. They work at Sony here in Taipei designing video games. Her English is good, she just wants to practice some conversation. She has a book with different conversation topics which we’ll go through, but we always have good conversation, so I don’t think thinking of things to talk about will be hard. I also told her I would try to find some articles on some of the newspaper sites I read (Washington Post, NY Times, etc) related to art, which she is interested in. So we can read an article and then discuss it when we meet. For my end, I just want to learn some basic phrases and simple conversation. I bought two basic Chinese books, so that way I can pick and choose some of the things I want to learn. Learning languages is not my forte, but I’d really like to be able to communicate better than I can right now! The other night I saw something in a store window and couldn’t find it in the store, so I pointed to it in the window and said “where” in Chinese, and that’s pretty much what my Chinese currently consists of (in addition to “hello,” “yes,” “thank you,” some numbers, and some terms in yoga class.) I'll let you all know how my Chinese is progressing! That's all for now!
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving!
My weekend was filled with Thanksgiving. Since we’ll all be working in the evening of actual Thanksgiving I celebrated with friends this weekend. It began with a trip to…where else? Costco. I was tasked with pie and wine given my very limited culinary abilities. So thank goodness for Costco Pumpkin Pie! It was my first trip there since I’ve been here (there are three in Taipei, and one not too far from my apartment). It’s just like home, from the one hour photo, to the free samples, to the made to order birthday cakes. For Thanksgiving dinner #1 on Saturday night dinner we had a group of about 10 of us at a friend’s apartment. We were actually able to order a pre-cooked turkey, and had pretty much everything you could ask for in a Thanksgiving dinner (stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc). And of course, pumpkin pie! We actually sat around a real table and ate. It was so much fun! I even have some leftovers which I will look forward to later in the week. Thanksgiving dinner #2 was Sunday night with some other friends and was also a lot of fun! So it was a whole weekend of good food and Thanksgiving.
In an effort to improve my Chinese a bit, I am starting a language exchange with a girl this week. She is a friend’s co-worker. She’s known English for about 15 years, so it’s pretty good, but she just wants to practice everyday conversation. I told her that I would like to learn some basics: how to ask for what I want in a store/restaurant, and be able to make some polite conversation with people. So we’ll meet one night a week for dinner and practice both languages. Language exchanges are very common here and I’ve been thinking about doing one for a while, but was always hesitant to just find someone online. So I am glad I found someone through a friend. I will definitely write later about how it goes and what I’m learning.
Last weekend I went to a friend’s going away party at KTV (karaoke). It was so much fun! There are several places throughout the city where you can go to do it. They’re all basically set up like hotels, so your group gets their own party room with room service, and your own karaoke setup. The Taiwanese are obsessed with karaoke, and it’s often how they spend their Friday and Saturday nights. It’s only $30US (total for the entire group) for the room for however long you want it!
Photos from Thanksgiving and KTV are on my photo site in my “Around Taipei” album. Happy Thanksgiving!
In an effort to improve my Chinese a bit, I am starting a language exchange with a girl this week. She is a friend’s co-worker. She’s known English for about 15 years, so it’s pretty good, but she just wants to practice everyday conversation. I told her that I would like to learn some basics: how to ask for what I want in a store/restaurant, and be able to make some polite conversation with people. So we’ll meet one night a week for dinner and practice both languages. Language exchanges are very common here and I’ve been thinking about doing one for a while, but was always hesitant to just find someone online. So I am glad I found someone through a friend. I will definitely write later about how it goes and what I’m learning.
Last weekend I went to a friend’s going away party at KTV (karaoke). It was so much fun! There are several places throughout the city where you can go to do it. They’re all basically set up like hotels, so your group gets their own party room with room service, and your own karaoke setup. The Taiwanese are obsessed with karaoke, and it’s often how they spend their Friday and Saturday nights. It’s only $30US (total for the entire group) for the room for however long you want it!
Photos from Thanksgiving and KTV are on my photo site in my “Around Taipei” album. Happy Thanksgiving!
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