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.