Merry Christmas!

Things I’ve Never Experienced on Christmas before this year:
Been in another country
Been with only Mike/no family
Driven a scooter
Eaten Indian food
Gone to a Buddhist Temple
Kissed a picture of my cat
Opened presents on a sleeping bag spread out on the floor under a pink pine cone tree
Eaten mustard
Been in 75 degree weather
Had mosquito bites

That being said, our Christmas was not bad. I think most foreigners I know (myself included) have been a little depressed for the past couple weeks, because it’s hard being away from home during the holidays. At least Taiwan kind-of does the Christmas thing…it must be hard for Chinese people living in other countries during the Lunar New Year, because unless you live in Chinatown, no place is going to be decorated or prepared for the New Year celebration, so they must feel pretty homesick.

I guess I should describe Christmas in Taichung first. The malls and bookstores have been decorated for Christmas—trees, garland, ornaments, lights, etc. The malls and some restaurants have also been playing Christmas music—sometimes sung in English, sometimes in Mandarin. I think the most popular Christmas song is “Last Christmas”…yes, the one by Wham. I feel like I’ve heard it just about everywhere, although usually not by Wham, but a Mandarin-speaking woman instead. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is also quite popular. Some of the malls have big lit-up reindeer outside and people are ALWAYS taking pictures with the decorations. On Christmas Eve, the 7-11 near the dog park was blasting “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” over and over and over again. Apparently that was the only song they had available (but it’s better than the 7-11 theme song that they usually blast). Oh yeah, and I don’t mean they were blasting it INSIDE the store…I mean outside the store. Anyway, from what I understand, for a lot of Taiwanese people (who aren’t Christian), Christmas is kind-of like Valentine’s Day. It’s a date day…a day to go out with your significant other and buy them a gift. It’s not a family day. At least that’s how a student explained it to me…and that would explain why a lot of the gift bags have hearts all over them and not reindeer. One of my foreigner friends who works at another school had to dress up as Santa. They gave him a suit and a megaphone, and he took the kids around the neighborhood singing Christmas carols…into his megaphone. I would pay a lot of money to see that, that cracks me up. So I guess I was overall surprised by how much Christmas there was in Taichung.

So for Christmas Eve, we went to an Indian restaurant with a bunch of foreigners for dinner. It was great! The food is pretty good there, but Mike and I ordered our curry “hot,” which was too hot. I’ve never had Indian food for Christmas, that’s for sure!


So for our Christmas, we were going to go to a brunch that a fellow teacher was hosting, but we got wrapped up (ha!!) playing with our new scooter. First, when we woke up, we opened presents. My family sent us some awesome gifts and food. One of our gifts were pictures of themselves and the animals from Thanksgiving. Here is a picture of me kissing my cat, Spocky. I miss him so much!!! (and Marge, and Molly, and all the rest…oh yeah, and my family…)

Then Mike went to pick up our scooter. He was pretty nervous about driving it all the way from the scooter shop to our place. Oh yeah, I haven’t really given the details about the scooter we ended up buying, have I? Ok so we went back to the shop the day after we failed to buy the first scooter, and they had a new scooter for us. It’s not as old as the other one and it’s got a good engine and brakes and blah blah blah. A little more expensive, but we bought it. And instead of picking it up that evening and having to drive it home in the dark and in rush-hour, Mike decided to pick it up in the middle of the next day, when there would be less traffic. So he left, survived the trip home, and we played with the scooter all afternoon.

Wow, I SUCK at driving a scooter! But I think I am improving…I have a hard time starting off smoothly. I just kind of jolt forward really suddenly. But we practiced down a virtually empty street and I’m getting better. We both practiced by ourselves and with the other person on the back. I think it’s scarier being the passenger, because I know my driver doesn’t know what he’s doing and I feel like I have to stay really really still so I don’t throw off his balance and make us crash. Plus when he starts and stops, my head moves forward and hits the back of his helmet. We must look like idiots. Here’s a video of me driving the scooter, but unfortunately my camera does not have a microphone, so there’s no sound.



I realized today that I have NEVER seen a stop sign in Taiwan. Maybe there are some somewhere, but there aren’t any in my neck of the woods. If it’s a big intersection, there’s a stoplight. If it’s a small intersection, it’s just four roads intersecting with no indication of who is to do what. So most people just kind of honk and plow through intersections, hoping no one else is coming. Sometimes people on scooters slow down (MAYBE stop), but most of the time they don’t. Cars tend to slow down a little, which I guess is good, but that’s the thing—the driving in Taiwan is COMPLETELY unpredictable. At home, even though there are terrible drivers on the streets, you can more or less predict how people will drive. But here, I have no clue what is going to happen at any moment. Sometimes people go down streets the wrong direction, sometimes a taxi will suddenly swerve into you, sometimes cars or scooters drive around you on either side…the things that happen only occasionally in the US happen regularly in five minutes of driving in Taiwan. Ya know when you’re on the freeway and you are going 65 in a 55 mph zone, and everyone else is going 75 or more, and you think to yourself, “Ya know…it would be safer if I just sped up like everyone else…breaking the law will probably save my life.” That’s how I feel here all the time. “Maybe I shouldn’t stop at this intersection…the person behind me doesn’t expect me to, so if I slow down at all, they’ll crash into me or have to swerve and pass me up.” And that’s just what I’ve gathered from practicing down two quiet streets behind my apartment building! So I have a lot to learn. That being said, while driving a scooter is scary, it’s also a lot of fun. And I totally look like Speed Racer in my helmet, I kind of rock. “Weee! Scooter!”

So while Mike was going to get gas in the scooter ($2US to fill it up!!!), I visited the temple and park behind our apartment building. Here are some pictures!



So for dinner, we went to a Western restaurant called “Fingas” and had Christmas dinner. You get ham and turkey, stuffing (yuck), cranberry sauce, cauliflower, broccoli, mashed potatoes, and gravy. The pictures don’t look right, but it was pretty good! Then we had some wine and watched Christmas movies—Rudolf, Frosty the Snowman (wow, that movie is messed up—have you seen it as an adult?), and Elf (Mike had never seen Elf! “Buddy the Elf! What’s your favorite color?”).


On my birthday, I chatted with my family (since it was still Christmas there) and Mike and I ate lunch at “Early Bird,” which is a Western-style breakfast place. I got an awesome omelet with mushrooms, broccoli, and jalepenos—yum! I like that place cuz there’s a black Labrador who walks around and hangs out with you. And, ya know, it tastes good. The food, not the dog. Anyway, I worked that evening and early Saturday morning, so Friday night I just made some pasta (yeah, it’s been a Western-y couple of days) and went to sleep early.

The Adult Director observed a half-hour of my adult class on Saturday, which was nerve-wracking, but he said I’m doing really well and he’s going to type up a report for me this weekend. It was a fun class, actually. My students and I have a really good rapport going now, and we’re all more relaxed now. And one of my students brought in some treats from Hualien—some purple sweet potato cakes. They were really good, I had three.

I had planned to practice on the scooter, but I passed out for a good chunk of the afternoon. When I woke up, we had my birthday dinner—a Hot Pot dinner! We were thinking of trying a new place, but there are some not-so-good Hot Pot places around, so we went to the same place we went with Bobby and Jennifer. Yay for taco-Christmas broth! It was delicious.


We went home and I opened some bday presents from Mike and my family. Then we ate some cake! Mike bought candles but forgot he didn’t have a lighter or matches, so I pretended to blow them out. I also made him sing Happy Birthday to me, which was pretty awesome, since I’ve heard Mike sing, like 4 times in the 81817681203439 years we’ve been together. It was Tiramisu cake—YUM! And for the rest of the night I drank my birthday champagne and we worked on my new puzzle! Low key, but awesome. Woohoo!

Since today was Sunday, I (of course), went to the dog park. Here are some pictures! There were fewer daschund today, and lot more of those curly-haired brown dogs. And yes, that’s a tiny French bulldog with a leather jacket/hoodie.