I was told that the coldest it gets is around 50 F, which is nothing right? Thus far it probably hasn't been much lower than that, but I'm not sure, I don't carry a thermometer. But pair that with wind, constant blowing rain, not having a car and always walking outside, being damp alllll the time, and living in an apt with tile floors, did I mention there is no such thing as heat here? Ok that's a slight lie, some of the larger department stores have heat, but the schools? No way. I get to school, after walking outside in the wind and rain for generally at least 20 minutes, and there's no heat inside. I go into my classroom, where all of the children are wearing 5 layers of clothing, minimum. Seriously. It's insane how many clothes the kids wear, like 3 long sleeve shirts, a sweater, their uniform, a vest, a jacket. At least their parents are just trying to keep them warm! But then they bitch about it being hot all the time. Hello! I'm not hot, I'm wearing a long sleeve shirt, the warmest thing I packed! They generally get their way though as it's part of some Feng shui belief that with so many children in a room the windows must be open to circulate all of the energy and balance things out. Fine, whatever, but I'm COLD! I don't want to have all of the windows open to create a constant breeze chilling me even more. Eeehhh.
Am I complaining? Yes. I'm also being a bit over dramatic. but it is an issue. Trying to sleep sometimes I shiver and shiver. So I bought another blanket last week and some big thick sweatpants, it's much more comfortable to sleep now. I know of many other foreign teachers who have bought space heaters, and even heat fans, so I'm not alone. Don't judge me! You don't know! Ok, I'm done with that. Now onto Christmas Season!!
As you may or may not recall, the school that I work at had a Halloween Haunted House for Halloween, we decided to do a similar activity for the Holiday's. People know what Christmas is here, and they somewhat celebrate it. It's mainly popular because the Taiwanese people love bright and shiny and flashy things, so naturally Christmas holds many attractive qualities to them. Many stores had lights and Christmas trees blinged out with gold and red garlands and all sorts of things. It was impossible to buy a string of lights that didn't flash around and blink. At least we were able to decorate our apartment! We also decorated at school and got things ready for Christmas House.
This time I was in charge of the Story Room, where I had to put together a few story boards with the help of Cindy, one of my Chinese Teachers. I decided to use the story from one of the old claymations "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" to tell them about how Santa came to be. I think it was a hit, a lot of the kids seemed really into the story and we told it quite dramatically, so that was fun. Other activities we had for the Christmas House was a balloon game, cupcake decorating, and they watched "Frosty the Snowman." It took place on Dec. 24th, Christmas Eve.. which was kind a bummer cause I had to be at work til 4:30, but it wasn't so bad.
Little decorations a bunch of kids made for Christmas to hang on the walls!
Cindy with one group of kids after our Story
Santa and Mrs. Claus handing out candy after the kids sang.
I'm an Elf, with the beautiful tree I made...
Santa and one of the Elves! My "pin" says Santa is Coming!
After the Christmas House I took the bus back and was home for 15 minutes before heading off for more Christmas fun. Nate, my friend from college who lives here too, is dating a Taiwanese girl, named Rainy. She is from Jhongli, where I live, and she decided to put together a big Christmas meal for Nate with a bunch of her friends and family. They invited Anthony, Greta, and I to come along, too! It was really nice to spend Christmas Eve with some other familiar faces. We had a huge meal with chicken, roast beef, mashed potatoes, stuffing, deviled eggs, pasta, salad, soup, apple pie, strawberry pie, wine, whiskey. It was good. After eating and hanging around we came home and ended our Christmas Eve watching some Dexter, did I mention I'm addicted to that show now?
Most of the food at our Christmas Eve Feast The next day, on actual Christmas, we opened presents in the morning. Santa found us all the way over here!! I feel so lucky to have gotten so many packages from home!! It was lovely. The 3 of us also exchanged gifts and I received a lovely clutch from Greta and an awesome new touch screen camera from Anthony! My camera had an unfortunate ending about a month ago, and although it still functions, the screen is completely cracked in. Then Greta and I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and walking around. When we came home we had a supper of chicken pesto with spicy bratwurst. Then we went to the park to takes pictures of the pretty Christmas lights they put up.
It was a pretty fabulous weekend, although we were all really missing home and our families. Good thing for Skype, we were able to see Julius and Toby show us all of their thousands of Christmas presents, it was so cute. And being able to talk to everyone was really great! Welll I think that's all for now. Next time you hear from me will be next year! ha, haha!
Christmas morning, Santa was here!!
The glorious park with beautiful lights and people :)
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