Thanksgiving in Taiwan

When the holidays come around and you're living in a foreign country, sometimes it can become lonely. You don't feel the same mushy feelings in the air around this season; no one is putting up Christmas lights on the street or their houses, T.V. programming doesn't get you excited for the holidays, you don't hear Christmas music when you go to restaurants or listen to the radio, no one talks about what they are going to buy for their families, etc. Thanksgiving and Christmas just feel like regular days in the heat of Taiwan (Temps have still been in the high eighties). This will actually be my wife's first Christmas away from her family. Last time I lived in Taiwan, I spent the holidays without any family too so I feel blessed to have my wife with me this time.

We have a couple Taiwanese friends who decided to have a Thanksgiving meal with us so we would feel more at home. They told us to not worry because they would get the food and bring it to our apartment. We were excited because my wife was having a hard time finding ingredients to make traditional Thanksgiving dishes. She is also still learning how to cook in Taiwan, since Taiwanese homes generally don't have ovens. Most homes only have a tiny stove top, which is basically those stoves you can get for when you go camping; so that makes it difficult to cook a real Thanksgiving meal.

The girls substituted the turkey with a chicken, pizza for stuffing, and of course the sweet potatoes were substituted by McDonald's French Fries! A perfect Thanksgiving feast!

This was actually our first time to have Thanksgiving in our home because usually we spend it at one of our families homes. This is also the first time we were able to use our wedding china. It was almost a classy Thanksgiving minus the McDonald's and pizza.

After the meal we told them a little bit about what its like/means to us to celebrate Thanksgiving in America. Then we put on the Christmas music and set up our Christmas tree!

Happy Holidays!!!

FG Christmas Video 2013

FG Christmas Skateboard Video Coming soon...

We had about 10 skaters out here to film for the First Glance Skatepark Christmas Skate Video. We filmed for about three and a half hours this time. The Halloween Video was filmed in only one hour. This time I didn't film the whole thing and was actually able to skate in it.

Skating the stairs is hard enough, but imagine doing it with the lights off! The Christmas lights didn't help much but we managed to make it work. I hope to have the video out by Christmas.

First Glance Skatepark Halloween 2013

Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival - 平溪

I am not sure of the exact story, but they started launching sky lanterns in Pingxi, because it was a secluded area. It began to have lots of crime after Han had settled there. So they would launch sky lanterns to either let people know there was a bandit attack, or it was to let people know that they were safe. This event eventually became a large scale festival when the coal mines closed in the late twentieth century and the villagers need a new income.

I headed up to Pingxi (平溪) saturday around 1pm with Jacob. When we first arrived in Taipei, we got off the bus, took the escalator down two stories, when I suddenly realized I didn't have my wallet. I quickly remembered where I left it on the bus. I ran back up to the 3rd floor to retrieve it from the bus which had already left. I talked to the guy at the front desk telling him my problem. With no response he waved his arm and started to go down the escalators, he then brought me to the ticket booth. I realized then, he didn't understand any English, and I also realized that none of their employers understood English. Which was fine, because I could practice struggling through my Chinese vocabulary to explain the problem. After a clueless dialogue, back and forth they had found the wallet and I could retrieve it when it returned back to the city in a few hours.

After I received my wallet, Jake and I headed out a little later then we planned. We hopped on the MRT (Taiwan Subway) and after a transfer made it to the bus which then took us to Pingxi. When we arrived there was thousands of people. We walked down a road shoulder to shoulder, 10 people wide for a long distance.

Jake and I bought one of our own after watching thousands of other people send their own up. ($3US). 

The whole night kinda felt like this...



...but without the girl

Year of the Dragon

Down the road from my house at off of 文心 road at Forest park is a big light display for the Year of the Dragon. On over corner of the park is a different colored dragon. There is lots of food and other activities to do there also. There was lots of people crowding the park, but surprisingly it all ended at 10pm.

Moltres?

Chinese New Year Part 3 (Dora's House)

 Jake and I spent two days with two of our past students. They took us to their home and ate lots of food, spending the day with their families.

Chinese New Year Part 2 (Fu Dog Dancing)

I managed to show up at the Fu Dog festivities a little late, just in time to catch the end of the show. They are doing construction on the major part of the temple so the show wasn't as extravagant as it was years before, I heard.

After the show they had this little arts and craft thing to do. You basically, get the paper wet, pound it with a brush on top of the imprint, then dab it with a sand bag dipped in ink.

Below the temple was a museum. It shared about the aboriginals, old chinese toys and more.

In the toy store you could buy from a big selection of gods.

Chinese New Year Part 1

Chinese New Year has just begun. It is one of the most important holidays for the Taiwanese. They celebrate the western new year, but traditionally their new year starts at a different date. They get about 1 week off of work, while students will get the month off of school. The day before New Years Eve they will clean their houses, throwing away old furnature, etc.

This week I am busy almost everyday going to different people's houses or places. The first day Jake and I went to a married students house. She brought us to her husband's parent's house. We enjoyed an intersting meal with the family.

We ate many strange foods. We had shark and also ate black chicken. After eating we played some games with the younger kids. Traditionally the uncle will give a red envolope to the nephews which contains a little bit of money. Jake and I recieved such an evnolope from the father-in-law.

New Years Eve - Taipei 101 Fireworks (Part 4)

It was a cloudy, cold, rainy day. We arrived at Taipei 101 around time for dinner. After spending some time to eat we walked the rest of the way to Tiger Mountain (Hu Shan). We walked up the mountain around 5:30pm trying to arrive early to get a good spot. Sadly it was already loaded with cameras (Photo below). As I scattered around I finally had to settle with a spot below the deck. I had to pull down some branches and tall grass to keep it out of my photos.

This was one of my test shots for preparing for the New Years Eve excitement. While waiting a long cold 6 hours. We chatted with the other photographers there, took naps and watched different people come and go.

You can view more photos on my flickr page

After the night was over and everyone left, we spent the night in a tent overlooking the city.  I slept very horribly from 1am - 5am being woken up by the chatter of some hikers who wanted to watch the sunrise.

Jake at 5:30 in the morning waiting for a bus

New Years Eve - Mr. Ming (Part 3)

This was a very interesting man we met while watching the Dragons and Fu Dogs dance. He talked to Jake for a long time before I joined in. He told us he became a Christian while in the military. He then showed us how well he could stretch at 82 years old. He proceeded by telling us all the secrets to staying healthy in your old age. It mostly had to do with rubbing your face. Supposedly it only takes 100 times of it a day and I won't go bald. He also told us that he was the Taiwanese's president's junior high-school professor.

New Years Eve - Cultural Festivities (Part 2)

While exploring we ran into a little Taiwanese cultural experience. This is my first time while in Taiwan actually seeing this kind of thing.

I see statues of this at many of the temples this is a Fu Dog or in chinese, Shishi (石獅).

While in the middle of the performance a man on stage pointed Jake and I out as the Americans who came to take pictures at their show. So I had a small conversation with him while he was on stage, with a camera about 2ft from me.

To see some more photos you can go to my flickr page.