Goodbye, Tainan

Chinese New Year is a wonderful celebration of friends and family. I miss you all SO much! The holiday actually lasts for four days and people don't go back to work until the 5th (today). Many stores and government facilities are also closed for this time, which is an interesting experience because nothing in the U.S. stays closed for more than a day! I loved receiving lots of hongbao, which are red envelopes that adults fill with money to give to children :)

On the evening New Year's Day we went to the Night Market, which was exceptionally busy. We didn't buy anything there, though we ate quite a few local treats! I discovered a new favorite drink, which is warm sweet ginger milk--it's absolutely delicious and I'm going to make it all the time when I get home! The next day, we had dinner at the home of my mom's childhood neighbors. It was fun to spend time with people who knew my mom as a young girl--some people she hadn't seen in over 20 years!--even though a lot of the conversation takes place in Taiwanese, which is a dialect that I don't understand. We've also been shopping at a local department store, which was fun, fairly inexpensive due to post-New Year's sales, and quite different from shopping back home (at the MOA, duh!).

Yesterday we took a short trip to Alishan (translation: Ali Mountain), which is a place my mother has wanted to visit for 20 years and has never quite been able to go. Alishan is famous for its sunrises, as well as beautiful forestry and other fawn and flora. I was kind of reluctant to go, but I figured: when will I ever find a better time to drive through the night to see a beautiful sunrise? We left home at 2:30am(which is earlier than I've been going to sleep), arrived at the mountain's base at 4:45am or so and took a little train up to the top, which is over 2500 meters above sea level. We got to the sunrise viewpoint at 6am and it was incredibly crowded! The sunrise was anticipated at 7:02am and it was indeed beautiful. It wasn't a red sunrise as I had hoped, but it was one of the prettier sunrises that I've seen in my life. While I was slightly peeved that I hadn't had a good night's sleep, it was heartwarming to be able to share an experience with my mother that she'd been waiting for for many years. We then walked down the mountain and drove home, arriving at about 1pm--when my cousins were waking up.

It has been a fun and relaxing stay in Tainan. We're heading up to Taipei tomorrow since my dad's arriving tomorrow night (yay!) and we'll be staying there for a little over a week. We're planning on coming back down to Tainan to celebrate my uncle's birthday! If I can manage to wake up early enough (fingers crossed) we'll go to the market in the morning to buy some of my favorite fruits and other treats. What I love about Taiwan is the opportunity to buy really good food at all hours of the day.