Last night for dinner we went by the evening market and picked up:
steamed, seasoned edamame
vegetable dumplings
"waffles" filled with chocolate and cream
scallion pancakes
cukes, peppers, mushrooms
passion fruit
and watermelon/guava/apple smoothies

Tonight we're joining friends at an expat bar and plan to eat lasagna and fish and chips.

Our lives are filled with contrasts.

Last night I met with a few friends to plan a Thanksgiving dinner. We would like to thank some of the people who have helped us with the transition to our new lives in Taiwan. Thanksgiving day Lee and I will be hanging out at a really nice hotel and spa in Taroko Gorge, by many accounts the most beautiful place in Taiwan. It will be hard to not be home for Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday) so I wanted to be someplace that would feel special so we're heading there for the long weekend. (As an aside: It's a long weekend for our school, but obviously nowhere else in Taiwan since Thanksgiving is such an American holiday. But "American" is in our school's name so it's a school holiday. Yippee!)

The Thanksgiving dinner we're planning will be the Sunday of the long weekend. There's someone who will roast a turkey for us and we'll share the work of making the rest of the dishes. I am in charge of appetizers. I'd love to hear any suggestions for the quintessential foods you would serve if you were me!

The second grade classroom has officially been closed for the next five days due to chicken pox. Apparently the government shuts down school classrooms for certain contagious diseases. SARS and H1N1 will cause a shut-down when there are two cases. Chicken pox is normally if there are 20% in the class that have it but the parents at KAS went into panic mode and demanded action with just 2 cases (less than 10%). So off went the little tykes after lunch today and they'll be back next Wednesday.  There's one case in the eighth grade and everyone is holding their breath waiting to see if anyone else comes down with it.

After school I dragged Lee and my own reluctant self out for a bike ride. It's sometimes hard to be motivated after a long day to go be active but sometimes you just have to. Mondays and Wednesdays are now our regular yoga nights but our instructor had to do something this week so we had time on our hands.

Our plan was to bike out to a lake on the eastern side of the city, an area we haven't been to yet. The traffic was really building by then and it was crazy on the roads. We often use the bike path so we can avoid the mayhem but it gets a bit boring after awhile. This ride was anything but boring. Weaving in and out of the hordes of scooters, navigating through streets we've never been on before, watching the sun set over Monkey Mountain.

We didn't actually find the lake but I felt like it was really close. We decided to head back and make another trip out that way over the weekend since it was beginning to get dark. I don't really mind biking at night but sometimes there's only so much I feel like tempting fate.

We've gotten familiar enough with the city to be able to navigate by dead-reckoning so we came back by just heading in the direction we knew we had to go and biking until we found a familiar spot. Fortunately most of the main roads have pinyin on the street signs, not just Chinese characters. The pinyin isn't always consistent (Quichang Road at one end, Chician Road at the other) but I'm starting to see the pattern in most of the inconsistencies.

When we first arrived I couldn't imagine that I'd ever be able to learn the street names. They sounded so similar and unfamiliar - Nanping, Mingcheng, Huarong, Junghua. Now those are as familiar as Hopmeadow and Bushy Hill and every day I add more streets to the map in my head.

Last night we went out to dinner with our friend Pearl to a restaurant that specializes in northern Chinese cuisine. Pearl has lived in Kaohsiung for 20 years and speaks Chinese so she is a wonderful dinner companion. She knows all the best places to eat and all the best food to order. Last night's menu included a hotpot of pickled cabbage, thin-sliced pork, tofu and fish balls. The broth was absolutely divine.

At dinner Pearl said she likes to eat out with us and our friend Nancy because we'll eat anything. It's surprising to me how many of the KAS teachers prefer western style food over the local restaurants. One of the huge benefits of living here for me is having the opportunity to try all the great food - Chinese, of course, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Indian.

If you only ate at the western restaurants you'd have to travel farther around the city and pay a lot more for lower quality food. And the food is always a little bit off. It's like eating Chinese food in Connecticut. It's just not quite like back in the home country. The ingredients aren't as fresh, the taste is a little different. The one thing I like about going out to eat at an expat place is that I know what I'm ordering. A burger and fries, fish and chips, grilled salmon - I know what those things are, even if the taste isn't the same as what I'm used to. Most of the time the menus I see look like this:

Ordering can be pretty hit-or-miss when you can't read anything except for the price (and the restaurant's tagline: Liu's Traditional Juancun Food) . I'll be starting Chinese lessons soon.

There's a street that runs alongside the apartment that seems to be the local venue for block parties, of a sort. Two or three times now the street has been shut down and filled with tents and vendors.

Sunday's event was like a farmer's market with some prepared food and local beer with the added benefit of a meadow full of weirdly creepy dolls.

There were banners hanging all around the park that proclaimed "Never give up!" in English and lots of stuff in Chinese but Google was no help in finding out what it all meant. When I asked around at school yesterday if anyone had any idea what it was about I was met with blank looks. Another one of Kaohsiung's little mysteries.

Yesterday at school the students and staff welcomed back Tom, the superintendent of KAS. He had been on medical leave for eight months battling cancer. He's now back part time as he gains  back his strength. I had never met him but by all accounts he's really nice (say the students) and the heart of the school. The welcome back party was really nice. All 600 students plus the staff gathered on the playground and were given roses so when Tom walked onto campus we all waved our flowers and cheered. It was very heart-warming.

The good news is my boxes appear to have arrived in Hong Kong and should get to Kaohsiung in the next few days. The bad news is I got an email from the shipping company that I think requires me to do something. Here's part of the email:

In response to the new requirements of Taiwan Customs declaration evacuation luggage must be hauled himself and has entry to Taiwan, in order to do the follow-up action!

After receipt of the letter hemp please reply immediately inform the already vulnerable to the wash station is to facilitate our job !!