Happy New Year

I just realized that my blogger site address no longer applies! Happy 2007 everybody.

We had a 3-day weekend for the New Year which we don't often have. For those of us used to flex-time schedules it kills to have to work 5 day weeks all the time so the long weekend was much appreciated.

My two travelling friends and I had decided to go to Taipei for the holiday. Taipei is "the place to be" in Taiwan but it is really far for just a weekend visit, 4 full hours on the train each way, and then I have to get home from the next town by bus or somehow. With the extra day, it sounded like a good idea.

To make it better, we imposed on a friend of a friend of a friend who had room for the three of us to stay in his apartment for free! The first treat was the apartment. It is only about a 10 minute walk from the metro station (here called the MRT). It is the top two floors of his building 7 and 8. It is a great, spacious apartment so even with his wife and two little kids, we could stay upstairs and out of their way. The upstairs also has a beautiful wrap around balcony/terrace with a neat view. We got in pretty late on Friday night, but met up with Linda, who had to take the bus, without too much trouble and got to the apartment and just crashed.

Early the next morning we went to the National Palace Museum after a scenic tour of Yangmingshan Park with great views of Taipei from the top.

Before I continue, I have to say that we had been warned that it was going to be very cold and rainy in Taipei and dressed accordingly. In fact it was in the high 60s to mid 70s every day and only cloudy with occasional showers one day. This left us pretty overdressed and carrying jackets everywhere.

The Museum was fabulous, as usual. It has been beautifully renovated and adopted the new "museumology" of having less stuff, better displayed and described. It was neat and the museum store is still gorgeous and still WAY expensive.

After the museum, we took a bus down into ShiLin, my old stomping grounds. We walked around a totally unfamiliar place, got something to eat then went to the famous Night Market. It is touted as the biggest in Taiwan and I don't doubt it. We all bought stuff and ate more -- hundred of food carts, and even though we never got to the best part of the market, the crowd just wore us out.

Sunday, I split off from the others and went back and found where my old house used to be. It's been torn down, of course, and replaced with something taller, but I could identify the spot because of the little neighborhood temple which is still there and apparently as active as ever. Then I went looking for the school I had taught in -- I knew that the American School had moved to the next town but people here were saying that the old school was still there. Yet another indication of how young some of these teachers are! There is a school there, but it isn't the old one I taught at. It is now a 4-story Taiwanese Elementary school and Kindergarden, very modern looking.

The amazing part was the stream that ran past the school and had the bad habit of flooding us regularly, has now been transformed. There are lovely high, concrete berms and the level part is a park with paved bike paths, etc. Really nice.

I walked back and window shopped. The alleys haven't changed much I told one lady that I used to buy cigarettes in the place where her shoe store is now and she said that she recognized me! Not true, of course, but sweet.

Then I went to Ximending, the old downtown. All of the stores that used to sell souveniers to tourists have been replaced with clothes stores. No more carved elephants or pirated books.

I met up with my friends at Taipei 101 -- they still call it the tallest building in the world but I'm not sure that is true. The first 4 floors are the most sophisticated and expensive shopping mall I have ever been in. Prada, Versace, Gucci, Chanel, Valentino, Armani, Tiffany, etc. One could spend a whole lot of money there. There were definitely people who were, also. Not everyone was a window shopper like us.

After a long wait, we got a table at Macaroni Grill (!!??) for dinner and dawdled to wait for midnight. Hooked up with a nice family from South Africa and some other expat Englsih teachers until it was time for the big fireworks display. We walked out and had a great spot for watching, right by the building and the show was as fabulous as advertised -- short, but fabulous. I'm such a fireworks junky but I would put it at or near the top of my list.

Hard trip home on the MRT with 500,000 of us trying to cram on but, like Washington, you get there eventually.

A great new year is beginning.