We've had a whirlwind week and a half of visiting friends and family, the first half in Amherst, plus a quick side trip to Albany, then the last few days in Simsbury. We celebrated my Dad's birthday, Christmas, and missed my brother's birthday - sorry Phill, happy belated birthday! Dinners and lunches with friends, a trip to the New Britain Museum of American Art:

But it's now time to pack up and head back home. And it does feel like I'll be going home. Our friends and family have opened their homes to us and it's been wonderful to be so welcomed, but we no longer have our own home here. Our home, where we hang our hats, as they say, is back in Taiwan. Happy New Year to all and I'll "see" you again in Kaohsiung!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas eve at the Bestor house was dedicated to Dad's 90th birthday. The whole clan was together - all the sons, daughters and grandchildren, something that doesn't happen very often. My sister, Leslie, had devised a game of Jeopardy for us to play.

With categories such as childhood and professional life we took turns asking trivia questions about our illustrious father's life.

The winning prize? Bragging rights, of course. What a delight to learn new things about Dad and our family and hear stories we hadn't heard ever (for the grandkids) or in a long time (for the brothers and sisters). It's always fun to hear the different perspectives about the same story. One brother's memory from the infamous bike trip of 1972 from Alabama to Massachusetts was quite different from another brother's.

It was a lot of fun, full of arguments, exasperation and laughter. We finished off the evening with cake, naturally. (For those of you who may be musicians, yes, we did notice that the staff has six lines instead of five.)

We have arrived in Amherst and our suitcase seems to be close behind. I expect it will get delivered to the house this morning. It was an eventful couple of days before we arrived at my family's house. Dad took a tumble down the stairs on Friday and cracked a couple of vertebrae in his neck plus a rib or two. He spent a night at the hospital, then they sent him home with a neck brace, some pain killer and a suggestion that he avoid doing that again. So far, so good, and we celebrated his 90th birthday, phase one, yesterday. Phase two will be on Wednesday when the rest of the family arrives.

My beautiful and lovely niece folded 90 paper balloons to decorate the living room.

Then it was time to open a few presents, mostly Chautauqua related plus a little Chinese lantern.

We are partway home. Uneventful trip to Narita Airport outside Tokyo. Then five hours walking the corridors before boarding the long flight to Dallas. We were delayed about 90 minutes on the tarmac as they tested the engines, then turned around all the taxied planes. Apparently the weather changed and they wanted all the flights to take off heading south instead of north. Go figure.

The pilot must have gunned the engines or we had a really good tail wind because we arrived only 30 minutes late. We waited and waited and waited for our one piece of luggage so we could go through customs, but all for naught. My change of clothes and most of our Christmas presents apparently chose a different route to the states. Hopefully someone will find it in their heart to help my bag get home for Christmas.

Now we're in Dallas, awaiting flight number three. Hopefully we'll be in New England before midnight.

Up at 5 this morning for the last minute packing and taking out of the trash. Then it's off to the subway to the airport and the journey begins. Kaohsiung to Japan to Dallas to Bradley. We'll be seeing some of you soon...

This afternoon Lee and I were relaxing after a long day of work when the alarm in the hallway started blaring. When I opened the door to figure out what was going on my next door neighbor had done the same thing. We looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and closed our doors. But being the good rule followers that we are, Lee and I headed down the stairs to evacuate the building, or at least to ask the doorman what was going on.

It turns out that the notices in the elevator really do have pertinent information. The alarms are being checked this week and there's no cause for alarm (pardon the pun). It seems my neighbor hasn't been reading the notices either. I think I better get started learning to read Chinese.

Since we were out and about anyway we decided to visit our new favorite fruit smoothie stand.

Those cups are filled with cut up fruits and vegetables and you pick which one you want, decide if you want sugar or ice and the lady at the counter blends it up for you. You can have papaya, passion fruit, tomato (which is considered a fruit here, not a vegetable), guava, pineapple. We both chose the fruit salad combo and sat at the table on the sidewalk to enjoy the traffic.

If I look a bit tired in the photo it's because I've caught whatever disease has been circulating through the teachers. At the moment it seems to be just a cold and I hope to be on the road to recovery by the time we get on the plane. In the meantime I'm drinking lots of fluids and getting plenty of rest, as long as the fire alarm doesn't go off again.

Today the middle school took a break in the middle of the day to let off some steam and have a little fun. I was assigned to the gingerbread house making group and watched as a couple dozen girls and three boys turned a perfectly nice social studies classroom into a sticky mess. Fortunately we cleaned up before the teacher was aware of how his room was treated. The kids had fun, which was the whole idea.

They also made some clay snowmen. A few of the students said they'd made actual snowmen, though clearly not in Taiwan.

Tomorrow is a regular old school day then Friday is sports day where the elementary kids play carnival games, the middle schoolers play basketball and volleyball against each other and the high schoolers avoid doing either one. It should be fun and it certainly beats trying to teach them anything on the last day before vacation.

Yesterday's weather was absolutely beautiful. If it hadn't been for the smog I'd say it was perfect. Cloudless sky, delightful temperature with a gentle breeze. It felt like one of those newly brisk days you get in New England when the weather has finally turned the corner to fall. 

We went for a bike ride after work and by the time we stopped for dinner the temperature had dropped to the low 60's and I began to realize I may not have enough cold-weather clothes with me. This morning it's 58 degrees here in Kaohsiung and it's dipped into the 40's up by Taipei. This kind of weather is making headlines around here. 

I know all of you back home are shaking your heads at me, but remember, no one has heat in their homes or work so when it gets chilly it stays chilly. I'll have to keep a sweater and a scarf in my classroom to wrap up in until the sun hits my windows and warms my room a bit. We leave for Massachusetts in three days and I'm pretty sure my body will go into shock when the plane lands.

Many, many teachers have been sick this weekend and into the beginning of the week. Colds, flu, stomach bugs, a little of this, a little of that. I may go native and wear a mask all day to keep the germs at bay. It's a busy week with lots of add-ons to the regular schedule, then the PTA Christmas party in Tainan on Friday and an early morning flight on Saturday out of Kaohsiung International Airport. After twenty-eight hours of traveling we arrive at Bradley (not quite) International Airport. In one of those quirks of time we actually arrive on the same day we left. I believe there will be some napping in our future...

We've had a busy 24 hours. We did indeed go to the concert last night.

It was held at a hotel/conference center around the corner from the school. The winter and spring concerts have been held there for a few years, once the school got big enough to warrant a 400 seat auditorium. But last night was the last concert to be held at the Garden Villa, as we will be using the beautiful theater space in the new building come spring.

The concert lived up to its billing. The little kids were as cute as could be, the recorders sounded better than I expected and the older kids were incredibly talented. We followed that up with a lovely pizza dinner with friends. Every now and then I need to satisfy the craving for some pizza and then be reminded that I really should wait until I go back to Simsbury and have the pizza at Little City. I'll just say that the company was way better than the food.

This morning we were up bright and early to join some folks for the second annual reindeer run at Aozihdi Park. One of the teachers at school invites the KAS community to run/walk a few times around the park and then gather afterwards at his apartment for a pancake breakfast. Who doesn't want the opportunity to get some exercise, chat with friends and be given candy canes? This is Claire, the daughter of some colleagues and a 6th grader at KAS, handing out the candy canes at the end of the run (or walk, in my case).

Reindeer antlers were optional, but quite popular, accessories.

After the walk and breakfast it was time to do some shopping. On our search for the toy store we came across a mall with an amazing little clothes shop. I splurged and bought a couple things for myself. As we were paying, the proprietors asked us to sit down and the woman gave us a cup of tea and seaweed with rice, which were delicious. While we ate her husband went into the shop next door and bought us a gift, a cute little mug with an odd little design on it. I've never been shopping where the shop owner bought me something. The hospitality here seems so sincere and heartfelt, like they were really, really glad we came to their shop. I love Taiwan.

The red hen sitting next to my new coffee cup is another purchase we made today - nesting measuring cups, because I need nesting chicken measuring cups, don't you?

Tomorrow night is the school's winter concert, which should be a lot of fun. All of the elementary classes do some kind of performance - sing a song, do a little dance, play the recorder with each one slightly off key from each other. That should take about an hour. Then the middle and high schoolers do their performances - solos and the orchestra. There are some really talented students here but maybe not an entire concert's worth. I imagine there might be a bit of variety in quality as the evening wears on. We'll see.

After the concert we're going to a friend's place for pizza and beer. We preordered the pizza from Pizza Hut and I got a chuckle from reading the menu today. The Veggie Supreme does not include the vegetables I'm used to on a pizza. No peppers and broccoli. Instead it's pineapple, corn, peas and mushrooms. But the chicken special is the one that really caught my eye: fried chicken, mayo, bacon, seaweed, pineapple, onion and cucumbers. Yum.

The Taiwanese sure love their Christmas trees. I haven't seen any live trees so the creativity in decorating begins with the color of the needles and moves quickly onto glitz and sparkle.

This one is in the main hallway of the school. I especially like the decorative cement block at the base.

This gold one is at the bike store. I'm not sure why they didn't decorate it with bike accessories. I guess that would have been a little too over the top.

The lovely tree is in the lobby of an upscale hotel downtown.

This is one of a pair of trees in the lobby of our apartment building. The Santas are often man-handled by the kids that live here. I'm tempted to move them around like the elf on the shelf just to freak them out a little. 

On my bike ride home from work today I noticed two things worth mentioning. (I feel like the kid in the Dr. Seuss' book "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street." How interesting can your daily commute be?)

First, as I was passing by the park there was a beautiful young woman all decked out in her wedding gown posing for photos. That is certainly not unusual as the pre-wedding photo shoot business is huge in Taiwan. What I found unusual was that there was someone setting up a small tent on the sidewalk and when I came around the corner again (I sometimes circle the park on my way home to get in a little bit more exercise) the woman had changed from her white gown to a startling red one, having just ducked into the tent to do a quick makeover. On the sidewalk! I've noticed that the sense of privacy is different here than what I'm used to but even this seemed a bit of a stretch for me.

The second thing I noticed was this: About two months ago a small storefront business was built on a street corner in our neighborhood. I soon figured out it was the headquarters for one of the people running for the local elections. The elections were at the end of November and today the building was getting demolished. Talk about a throw-away society! The entire building was built, used and destroyed in a matter of a few months. Maybe not the best use of resources...

Today we spent the day on a most amazing hike. We signed up for a guided trip to the east coast which is very rugged and mostly deserted. The mountains come right to the shore and the wind and weather hit hard. There were 14 hikers, eight from KAS, plus the guide, Mark, and his wing man. Mark is from Ireland but has been in Taiwan for over 20 years and does a lot of hiking, biking and generally exploring the island.

We knew the hike would be a challenge. It's 12 km long and right along the shore but most of the walking is on beach stones so it was six hours of scrambling over uneven, wobbly surfaces. But it was absolutely stunning.

It was a mostly overcast day so it wasn't too hot and the wind was blowing like crazy. It felt like it may have been coming from the edge of the typhoon that's pummeling the Philippines right now.

Some of the rocks were really interesting shapes.

Maybe pillow lava? maybe sedimentary? There were a lot of pieces of coral too.

You can tell how rugged the coastline is by the fact that we passed two ship wrecks. One had been there a number of years and was pretty well broken up. the other one was pretty recent - the last six months or so.

It's eerie to walk around such a big creature, imagining how the crew must have felt when they knew they were doomed. I wonder what happened to them? What happened to the cargo? Is the ship destined to slowly disintegrate on the rocks?

The sad part of the hike was the amount of trash that had washed ashore. There was more plastic strewn across the rocks than you could even begin to imagine cleaning up.

This hike was one of the most strenuous hikes I've been on and I was glad to have done it. It was good to really push myself past the pain and discomfort. My brain had to work hard to negotiate the uneven territory, my body had to work hard at all that balancing. It was six hours of being in the here and now, no daydreaming or zoning out. Even when I thought, really there's another headland to go around?!, I was thoroughly enjoying myself.

Last night was the KAS Christmas party. It was held at a posh hotel downtown. The Christmas tree in the lobby was huge and understated, by Taiwanese standards.

The elevator doors were dressed up for the season.

We were whisked up to the 42nd floor to the circular restaurant at the top of the building. It was a spectacular view with all the cities lights down below. I'd love to go back sometime and see the view during the day.

As an international school KAS likes to combine both American and Taiwanese elements in its traditions so we were given red envelopes by the superintendent as we walked in the door. Red envelopes are the traditional gift in China for pretty much every celebration so why not for a Christmas bonus?

I'm not sure how I'll spend my money. Maybe at the jade market....

Another American tradition the people at KAS like is the Yankee swap, a game I personally dislike. You put some effort into bringing a gift you think someone might enjoy and you end up coming home with somebody's idea of a joke. Case in point: Lee took a bottle of scotch and came home with this, the "Tube Slimer."

Really, it says tube slimer. I chose not to participate, for obvious reasons.

Shopping at the markets has gotten to be pretty mundane but sometimes I like to remind myself that it was only a few months ago that all this was brand new. So when we went shopping this afternoon for fruit I took a few pictures of some items that we did not buy.

First up, duck parts, specifically, heads and feet:

This display looked really tasty but Lee already had dinner planned so we'll try this another time. It's prepackaged ingredients for soup or stir-fry. What really caught my attention were the prawns with scallions and red peppers.

The corn dogs looked good too but you can never really be sure they aren't actually dogs - just kidding! I'm pretty sure dog is not on the menu. Maybe in China but not in Taiwan.

Most of the vendors have samples so I tried something that I've seen before but had no idea what it is.

I was a little worried that it was slabs of flavored lard but it was actually quite tasty. I'd say it was a little like polenta but with rice or maybe turnips instead of corn and flavored with seaweed (at least the one I sampled) instead of cheese. It's on the maybe list for a future meal.

All this food was making us a bit hungry so we did buy a snack to go along with the produce.

Fried dumplings filled with cabbage and onions. Hot greasy goodness.

I was sitting in the living room in the early morning with the balcony door open and I heard an odd sound. When I stepped outside I realized it was raining. It happens so infrequently I'd forgotten what it sounds like! Maybe it will wash away some of the smog.

Boy, do I like my yoga evenings. It took me going halfway around the world to finally take a class and realize what I've been missing. Priscilla is a little sprite of a South African woman in her early thirties and we are a class of 5 or 6 mostly middle-aged creaky teachers from America. She manages to work our tails off without letting us actually hurt ourselves. I feel wonderfully stretched out and a little bit achy by the time I crawl into bed and then wake up in the morning feeling refreshed and limber. It's like magic.

Today I feel like there are enough signs around the city to confirm that there has been a shift in the seasons. Here's how I know winter has arrived in Taiwan:
1. Christmas decorations at the mall. There's even a tree up at school. I'll take a picture tomorrow. It's pretty cute in a tacky, tinsel-ly way.
2. The corn in the 1st grade garden was harvested and eaten today.
3. It's dark enough during our morning commute that the street lights haven't blinked off yet.
4. The thermometer has been dipping into the 60's during the nighttime.
5. I've started counting the number of days until we fly back to the states for winter break!

It was so chilly this evening that I actually wore socks with my sandals when we went for a bike ride. I'm not quite ready to make the leap to wearing long pants - no need to be hasty in making that change. I think our bodies will be in for a major shock when our plane arrives at Bradley in three weeks!

The school is in the typical pre-winter break frenzy. Christmas parties, musical performances, end-of-term exams. Good thing we had a long weekend to rest up for the final push.

Why, you may be asking, do I have all those receipts strewn across the table? Because it's time to check the receipt lottery, of course! And what is the receipt lottery? It's the Taiwan government's way of ensuring that merchants pay their taxes. They've given the consumer an incentive to demand a receipt for their purchases which means the transaction goes into the books, not under the table.

Here's how it works: Every receipt has an eight digit number printed on it and every other month three of those numbers are randomly drawn. You can win anywhere from NT$200 to NT$10,000,000, which sounds like a lot until you divide by 30 and realize it's less than US$7 to US$300,000. Still more than pocket change though!

So I dutifully save all my receipts, where they pile up in the desk drawer until the end of the odd numbered months. Then I sort them, cross my fingers and hope that I've got a match. And guess what?! Out of the 50 or so receipts I had two NT$200 winners!

Yes, the one on the left did come from pizza hut. What can I say, you can't watch football without pizza. And now I get to go down to the post office and collect my winnings. Maybe I'll treat my colleagues to a round of bubble tea!