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. 

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is an American holiday when we eat a lot of food with family and it's okay to be really fat. It's the one day a year where you just keep eating and eating and everyone is okay with it. XD Actually it's supposed to be about family. But it's traditional to have a whole roasted turkey, and tons and tons of food.

In Taiwan, they don't even know what day Thanksgiving is. The day went by without notice. Actually, I forgot about it too, until about 9 am in the morning when an American exchange student in my Chinese classes told me. Then I got a little sad.

But actually my day was great.

I went to school and there was a meeting about chocolate. Ah, the joys of going to a cooking school. So Marielle and I spent the whole meeting drawing stuff. We actually drew a really smart picture of the Taiwanese election going on right now and some other ones.

It's so funny. We couldn't stop laughing in the chocolate meeting. We got free chocolates too.

Here are some pictures of the real meeting, which was actually pretty cool. We got to see the chocolate bean and we got to taste 100% chocolate. It's pretty bad tasting.

After school, Marielle told me she forgot her house keys so she couldn't go home. So we took the opportunity to go shopping for some food and cups and plates for the next culture fair we have coming up and for our Kaiping Birthday thing. I will talk about that more later.

Then Peggy had invited me to dinner to help me with a Chinese speech I have to give to rotary. She's so nice. I had tried to call her and tell her Marielle was with me and ask her if that was okay. But I couldn't get in touch with her. Anyway, she reacted so sweetly. When I told her it was thanksgiving she told us that we would celebrate it together! So we went out for steak!

It was so good.

 Outback Steakhouse

Seared Tuna

We got so much food.

Then she helped me with my speech. And told me she would help me find calligraphy lessons. I'm so excited about that.

My speech:

It was a good day.