第十九個星期：A New Year

星期四：Today we had a choir social after school to mark the end of the semester. We all met up, took pictures, and ate. We also all had to give little speeches about what we'd enjoyed in the choir, and then we played some games together. While I haven't been able to get very close with any of the members, they're all really nice and help me out when I don't have any clue what's going on.

星期六：Today my family took me to the hot springs that my last family took me to a few months ago. Even though I had been before, it was fun to go back as who would not want to soak in a nice warm pool again? We couldn't take any pictures, but just believe me that it was really cool. Also I got my feet nibbled on the little fish again and now they're so soft. After enjoying the hot springs, we then went for a nice lunch of traditional barbecued chicken.

Once back home I met up with Heather, Anthony, Mackenzie, and our Indonesian friend from Chinese class who's our age. We decided to eat Indian food and, since it was New Years Eve, we splurged and bought a giant four person feast thing to share between us. We then weren't sure where to go, but we'd heard there was some kind of light trail at Siziwan, so we headed there. It turned out to not be incredibly cool, so we just wandered around the coastline for a while, enjoying the fact that we had an extended curfew for New Years and didn't have to be home for hours. We then went to the famous shave ice restaurant where I shared an absolutely amazing strawberry shave ice with Mackenzie. We were then thinking of going to the giant Dream Mall because they supposedly had fireworks, but we had heard it was insanely crowded, so we decided to head to the top of the nearby Shoushan mountain. We thought we were brilliant and that no one else would have the same idea, but as we were making our way up to the viewing platform on the side of the mountain, hundreds of people were doing the same. Though it was super crowded and I kept having to jump up to see the view of the city over everyone, it was actually kind of cool to count down the new year with a giant crowd. As soon as it hit midnight, fireworks exploded all over the city. There were even barges in the harbor that sent up a bunch of colored flares at the same time (we're hoping it was just for New Years and weren't all coincidentally sinking at the same time). While it was hard to see, it was pretty cool to watch from above the city. At that point some of the crowd left, so we got to go up to the top of the viewing platform and see the city lights with the famous LOVE sign in front of it. A guy then decided to set of a bunch of fireworks from the top of mountain, and, while it made for an awesome view as they were right over our heads, they ended up getting a bit too close for comfort pretty soon, and at that point pretty much everyone, including us, decided it'd be a good idea to head home.

(the light path)

(relishing in our lack of an early curfew)

(shave ice in the middle of winter)

(left my mark in the shave ice shop)

(random guy started setting off slightly scary fireworks)

(view of the city)

(my eyes loo scary but I swear I was having fun)

(random guy's fireworks were scarily close but made for good pictures)

星期天：Today we all slept in super late, but then in the afternoon we headed out to what was a cafe by the airport where you could watch the airplanes land and take off, but was also a kind of sketchy petting zoo and amusement park for kids for some reason. It was pretty relaxing as we watched the planes until the sun set and then went and fed the animals in the petting zoo. We then headed to Pintung where we would stay the night with the host grandparents that I'd met a few weeks ago. The grandma likes talking to me, but the grandpa is 90 and can't quite see or hear super well, so he can't figure out who I am or why I am here, but he's nice. I also met some of the cousins who were all very curious in who I was but also too shy to ask me.

(watched a bunch of planes come and go)

(first sunset of 2017)