New Year's was awesome! It was a huge deal this year because it marked the 100th year of the Republic of China (founded 1911), so Taiwan really went all out. Taipei had a huge fireworks display designed by the same guy who did the Beijing Olympics and Shanghai Expo fireworks - though I really don't understand why they felt it necessary to follow in China's footsteps that way - well, anyway, the fireworks were still pretty cool.
Despite the freezing cold, there was a huge turn out at the New Year's Celebration around Taipei 101, I heard over half a million. Scene at the MRT, and this was around 3 p.m.:
They increased public transportation services by a lot - the capacity just one line of the MRT could transport to and from the Xinyi Business district every hour was comparable to the size of my home town.
The celebration around 101 was exciting but super crowded. After getting squashed at the concert, we left with our free stuff to celebrate in a more cozy area:
Thankfully, Alex's grandma's apartment was only about 15 minutes away from 101, so we could avoid the crowds and freezing weather and still watch the fireworks from the roof. View from the balcony:
That is the chaos that we avoided.
The fireworks display was really great! From the roof we could see fireworks from different areas, including 101 and the Flower Expo, and based on what others said the view was a lot more impressive than it was if you were actually in the 101 area.
And at the end of the fireworks show:
This almost speaks for itself. This is what 101 looks like every night now. As my friend's discussed, can you imagine if NYC displayed some kind of slogan containing a pink heart over the whole city? No, that would never happen. It is pretty cute though.
The new year is off to a great start. My classes are amazing! I have one of the best teachers in the entire school and my one-on-one teacher is my news teacher from last year. All of my classmates are heritage learners, meaning no problems with accents or tones. And best of all, my classmates are awesome, really smart and basically the people who I spend time with outside of class. Class feels more like an extended social interaction than actual class.
Also so far in 2011, Dom visited me from Beijing! I went to Xinzhu with Alex and Jason in search of delicious food and we rode the high speed rail back to Taipei. And I travelled to Sun Moon Lake and Taroko Gorge with Cat Drey and co. - the places to go in Taiwan which I had previously never been too. There was an earthquake yesterday which was pretty exciting. Now I get the week off for Chinese New Year, which also means eating infinite amounts of food and yummy snacks!
I have to go eat now! Happy Chinese New Year and actual New Year! more updates soon!
Soooo jealous.
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