Me and Joyful

Due to some family issues, I returned home for Christmas to see my family. I was only able to make it home for one week, though, because as school continued as normal here in Taiwan throughout the Christmas season, I did not want to miss too much of work. I was back for class the Monday after Christmas, and two days later, Joy came to visit! It was kinda fun saying goodbye to her in Illinois, knowing I'd see her again in a few days.

For New Year's, we went up to Taipei to see the fireworks at Taipei 101. It's one of the biggest New Year's celebrations around the world, attracting well over a million people. After taking the HSR up from Kaohsiung, we went to check into our hotel and then went downtown to meet the other Kaohsiung people. However, due to the crazy crowds, certain metro stops kept closing down. It turned out to be too infeasible trying to find everyone, so we waited for Kristin and Kaitlyn and then walked over to get into position for the fireworks. The Taiwanese have a saying for large crowds: "people mountain people sea." In other words, there are as many people as a tall mountain and as vast as the sea. When I had told my Taiwanese friends that we were going to the celebration, they all repeated this phrase over and over to me. And it was not an exaggeration, for there were more people downtown than I have ever seen concentrated in one place before. It took us 2.5 hours to get back to our hotel afterwords, because in trying to walk back to the metro station, we ended up walking past four stations along the line before finding one that was open and allowing people to enter. By the end of the evening, my lower back and feet were so sore that I could hardly move.

Despite all of this, it was still a lot of fun. We had gone downtown early in the evening, so had gotten fairly close positions to the main stage where all of the entertainers were performing. I am sure that we saw loads of very famous Taiwanese musicians, though we only knew a small handful of them. President Ma Lingzhou also put in an appearance, and led a mini rally leading up to the countdown: "Taiwan - UP! Taiwan - UP!" Haha this year's theme was not the most original. The fireworks themselves were quite impressive, though apparently not up to par with what they have been in previous years. Last year they attempted to scale back the budget, and while this year was an attempt to reinvigorate the program, it still disappointed many commentators. There were also two pauses in the middle of the display, which later were attributed to problems with the lighting. My biggest complaint was simply that after standing up and being pushed by the crowds for over four hours, by the time the fireworks started, I was really tired and achy. Next time, I will find a spot farther away where I can be more relaxed (or watch it on TV lol).


The next day, Joy and I slept in till noon which was beautiful. Then we went to visit the National Palace Museum. I had been back in September, but as Joy really wanted to go (something about her being a history graduate student?), I was happy to go again. They were having a New Year's Day special with free entry that day. It also might have had something to do with the President putting in an appearance (we saw him enter accompanied by his secret service entourage - quite exciting). The Museum itself is quite fascinating, housing over 650,000 ancient Chinese artifacts and spanning over 8000 years of history. I had known that the museum had a lot of artwork, but had not realized the full scale of it before. Displays are rotated every three months so that 60,000 different pieces are visible to the public every year. This means that it takes a dedicated museum-goer nearly 12 years to see every single piece! The collection was moved from Beijing to Taiwan back when Nationalist government fled across the strait to escape the Communists. Therefore, much debate has broken out over the decades about whether the collection was stolen, whether it showed the true legitimate government or whether it was just being preserved from destruction during the Cultural Revolution. Politics aside, my opinion of the museum is that it could be redesigned with better lighting to show off the pieces to the best advantage. Many of the rooms are quite dark with shadows across the pieces, making viewing tiring to the eyes, or at least, my eyes. :) Joy and I also walked around outdoors to enjoy the gardens, and took a trip up to the tea house on the top floor.

That evening, we took the metro north to Beitou to enjoy the public hot springs. I was super excited about this as I had never been to a hot springs. Besides, after the previous evening, my muscles needed some serious relaxation. The springs were a lot of fun (Joy and I never did make it into the hottest spring at the top - the middle one was already scorching!) aside from the many men in speedos. The reason I had originally chosen this public spring was because I do not do nudity. Seeing as speedos are the closest thing one can get to nude bathing, I was not the biggest fan... Can someone please explain to me why guys like speedos? Not cool...

The next day, we returned to Taipei 101, this time to ride the elevator to the top and make the claim of going up the tallest building in the world. Except not really, since Dubai just surpassed it... At any rate, this is Joy mailing her roommate in Wisconsin a letter from the top.


















After seeing the modern side of Taipei, I thought it would be fun to go experience the ancient art of tea time at a country tea house. There is a gondola which connects Taipei to this place just outside in the middle of tea plantations famous for its tea houses. The only problem was, once we got there, we discovered that the gondola had not been working since the August typhoon. So there went that idea. Being resourceful, I decided we should take the bus. Bad idea. The bus ride out there was nearly an hour (I did not know this going in). While the gondola ride would have been thirty minutes through misty mountains (noted for being scenic and romantic), we instead got a long bus ride out, and a long bus ride back, neither of which was particularly scenic since it was foggy and drizzly. At least the actual tea house part was fun.





















Back in Kaohsiung, Joy had the great privilege of trailing me for a few days and seeing the daily life of Grace. She got to observe school, witness English Village, eat beef noodles, hang out with my co-teachers, enjoy my apartment's lack of water (the week she was here, we first lost all hot water, then lost all water pressure to the point where there was no water in the house...), ride my scooter (she declined learning to drive hah) and see the many fun sites of the city. We stopped by Lotus Lake and saw the Tiger/Dragon Pagodas, climbed up to the British Consulate, took the ferry to Cijin Island where we ate lots of seafood, saw the beach and the harbor etc etc. It was fun having her here for the few days and seeing everything through her eyes.




















By the way, the only thing more wild and crazy than a tall green-eyed blond lose on the Taiwanese streets, is TWO tall green-eyed blonds.... None of my students could get over how tall she was. Just wait till my brother gets here. :)