Chinese New Years (part four) Trip to TaiChung

I went on a trip to Taichung with my host family.

On the way their my host mother bought this lunch for me. It's so perfectly Taiwanese.

This was my favorite. Fried Chicken, egg, ham, cheese, Taiwanese mayo, small bean sprouts. Soooo good.

"zha ji zan min zhi"

Milk tea.

"nai cha"

Scallion pancake wrapped around egg.

"Dan bing"

Three hour car drive.

We went to their friend's house. Their house was really beautiful and they kept giving me food. I really felt welcomed. At one point, I decided I wanted to get my camera from the car. My host mother also wanted to get hers. We are rather joint by our love of taking pictures. But we got really distracted by their neighbor's yard. You see, they had a garden and looked just so picture perfect Taiwanese. So even though we said we'd only be gone for a minute, we ended up disappearing for over an hour. XD My host mother is so funny like that. I really enjoyed it. So we went into the neighbor's yard and took a bunch of pictures. And then the person who lived there came and my host mother befriended her and we took pictures sitting on their bench. Which was beautiful. After that we went on a walk and found more picture perfect spots.  

Christmas Tree like flower pot. 

This was the friend's house.

Taichung isn't city, it's the countryside.

The first time I ever saw things growing other than tomatoes and corn. 

Cabbage. 

I love this. It's so hard to believe it's a real place.

Wow.

Lettuce. 

A Taipei girl in the country. 

Again, the family's home. So beautiful.

It seems like every Taiwanese family has one of these super cool tea sets. When I get married it's also my goal to have.  

After talking and eating lunch with the family, we went with the daughters to their University, which is so beautiful, married couples take pictures there. 

BUT, I cannot upload photos because the wifi isn't working on my phone lately, for some weird reason. So please wait until I find I way to solve the problem.

Chinese New Years! (Part two) Christmas Tree and Vacation

So, does Taiwan have their version of a Christmas tree? Yes!

My host mother took me to the Taipei Flower Market and she told me that usually every family will get at least one huge flower plant and that they decorate these plants with Chinese ornaments. It's very much like the Christmas  tree. It's really beautiful.

Taipei Hua Xi

Taipei Flower Market

There were lots of people.

Really beautiful flowers everywhere. 

Even though Taiwan doesn't have a Christmas vacation, they have a three week Chinese New Year Vacation which, as I write, I am still on. All of the posts I am writing about Chinese New Years took place during a time period when I did not have school. It's roughly the 20th of January to the 15th of February. 

So we spent the whole day out. 

They individually wrap a lot of their flowers. I've never seen that before.

They paint some of the flowers with gold or glitter paint. Which looks so so nice. I love it. 

It was like flower heaven. 

This one I loved

A lot of red and gold because those are the lucky colors. 

I love the painted ones. 

A lot of people in a small place and a lot of flowers. Such is Taipei. It's such an exciting place to be.

I saw so many types of flowers I had never seen before. 

It's year of the bunny so they had tons of ornaments and bunny decorations. 

I was tempted to buy everything. I really want to, one year, style my Christmas tree Chinese style. It would be so beautiful.

A radish. Painted. Pre-decorated. 

I LOVED the flower market. If you have a chance to go around new year time, you should do it. I don't know how great it is other times of the year. 

I really am so thankful to my host mother for her taking me here. She didn't even buy anything, she went just to show me. And I really enjoyed it. 

Anyway, our day wasn't over. I had told her I wanted to buy some stuff and she had told me she knew a cheap place. Also, we had lunch in this Taiwanese market place and I ended up buying a shirt and a dress. 

This is the menu of the place. Want to know why it's so hard for exchange students to eat in Taiwanese stores? No pictures at all. Sure I can read some things. But not all. And I know how to order. But anyway, this was a really good noddle place. My Gosh.

Noodles, tofu, Ousters

Noodles, meat rice.

XD My host mother is really good at editing and so she edited these so they look fake and perfect. 

Some after lunch shopping. I didn't buy that shirt.

Good day. I would post pictures of what I bought but... It would take too much time.