There's no place like home for the holidays! Looking back on it now, I feel as though the Christmas season was more eventful than I give it credit for. Christmas Day itself was just rather uneventful.
The Christmas season started by teaching my students Christmas songs. They had to sing the songs with motions. The songs were recorded for each class and posted to facebook. The classes with the most "likes" would be the winners and receive a prize. I decided to teach all of my classes the classic "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells." It was not as big of a hit as I hoped among the students. However, because of my facebook friends votes on my school's facebook page, three of my classes won prizes! Thanks for the votes!
I really miss Buckhead Church. In fact, I have been downloading the podcasts for each sermon. I should let Andy know that from 8,000 miles away, I have not missed a single sermon over the past 7 months! Both the Christmas concert and Christmas service were broadcasted live. Well, I could not miss those either! We connected the computer to the TV and watched these on the big screen.
The Buckhead Church Christmas Concert and our snowman Christmas decoration
My school uses a full school day to celebrate Christmas. Each of the four English teachers is required to teach and play a Christmas game for 15 minutes in the classroom. Throughout the day 15 classes come to your class. The other teachers told me how exhausting the day can be especially since you have students of all ages that you don't even know their names come to your classroom. I wisely decided to pick a low key game. I played "Santa Slap." I created cards with Christmas pictures (i.e. Santa, a Christmas tree, an elf). Then, the students sat in circles on the floor and played the classic card game of "Slap." Although I did not win the "most fun classroom award," the students seemed to enjoy the game and most importantly the teacher was able to stay happy and energetic throughout the long day!
One of my favorite classes for the Christmas party day at school
James' school did not do the huge production for Christmas like my school. However, they did a few activities for Christmas Eve. His students are super cute like him!
An American couple at our church in their 60's are missionaries in Taiwan. They work a lot with college students in Hsinchu. Every Sunday evening they hold a Bible study at their apartment. They also hold an annual Christmas party. James and I attended the party. The party included people from around the world including America, South Africa, Iran, Nicaragua, France, Vietnam, Thailand, and Czechoslovakia. We sang Christmas carols in other languages. James and I kept singing the Nicaraguan song "Elu agago" long after the party ended. You can watch the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY-kfDH9ros . We lit candles and sang "Silent Night." The most moving part of the evening was the reading of the Christmas story from the Bible. Each person read a few lines from a Bible in their native language. How crazy is it that we were all brought together to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas in a small apartment in Taiwan? It will give you goosebumps if you really think about it! We also enjoyed a Christmas gift exchange. Each person was asked to bring a "very" Taiwanese gift. James and I brought Hello Kitty and the big yellow Luck Duck items. We received a box of famous Taiwanese pineapple cakes (these were really a present for James in the end) and a house decoration with Psalm 121:1-3 written in Chinese.
The fun continued with a candlelit Christmas Eve service at our church. Since we work later hours than the average population, the service started at the same time I was finishing class (with cancelling my one hour private class) and 30 minutes after James' classes ended. I took a taxi to the church right after class! It was quite the adventure. James made it to the service about 45 minutes late. It was well worth the effort though!
That's me in the back row with the purple coat.
The church gospel choir even came to the service!
The weather has been downright cold here for the past couple of weeks. The cold is much different than anything James and I have experienced though. Because of the extreme humidity conditions, the cold gets deep into your bones. The temperatures are not low but it does not matter for this wet, sunless cold! Bleh! This is humidity to a new level. Our towels will not dry in the apartment and the floor is slick in my classroom. Of course, riding the scooter does not help matters. In addition, no place has heat here. Our schools are freezing (I teach in a coat now), our apartment is cold and damp (thank goodness for the nice couple at our church that lent us a space heater), and even restaurants and stores are cold. There is no relief from this cold!
All of this being said, we needed a change for our daily lifestyle to attempt to stay warm. We were overwhelmed with Christmas love from home to help us make that change. James' mom sent us warm winter hats, my parents sent a package that included scarfs and sweatpants among other items, plus my parents and all of my grandparents gave us some money to use wisely. Well, we did use it wisely! We now own slippers and sweatshirts for the apartment. It was so difficult to find a thick warm sweatshirt here and we don't know why. I have boots and tights to wear at school. But, the best purchase of all was a microwave! We could not longer eat cold salads for dinner. They had become unappetizing even for the veggie loving Rockwells. James is a cooking machine with the microwave.
James can make anything in the microwave. He is a cooking genius!
We were overwhelmed with Christmas love from home in other ways, too. Thanks for all the Christmas cards!!!!
Here are some Taiwanese Christmas cards. One of my students gave me the card with Santa hanging out in the tub with the Luck Ducks. James' favorite students gave him the card with Santa paragliding with a rainbows. It reads " I love you Teacher James. Merry Christmas." Awww....So sweet!
Although the cold and rain is not fun, we are getting some cool views of the mountains from our apartment rooftop.
These slippers were awesome but I went for the more practical ones instead.
We were one of the only cram schools to receive Christmas Day off from school. The weather was cold and rainy so we spent most of the day running errands and skyping with family. However, we enjoyed a special Christmas dinner with a friend from New Zealand. He took us to a wood-fired pizza restaurant on the coast. They serve a vegan pizza. The pizza was delicious and a good change from the Taiwanese style food we eat daily. However, the best part was sitting by the wood burning stove. We were peeling off layers they entire meal! The warmth felt incredible!
The cold weather really puts a damper on our weekend scooter adventures into the mountains. However, we decided to try one anyway. We drove to a hopping mountain town called Nanzhuang. After stopping in town at the visitor's center, we continued into the mountains in search of hike we had read about in Lonely Planet. The hike was a bit further out than expected and the weather began to turn extremely cloudy and much cooler. The trail seemed awesome though! We felt like we had been transported to Colorado. We will definitely be going back to do the full hike on a warmer day.
We were absolutely FREEZING on the ride back into Nanzhuang. We enjoyed a billion free samples of the local Hakka food and an outdoor show. Thankfully we found a vegan restaurant (somehow we always do in Taiwan). James ordered us boiled vegetables and hot noodle soup in Chinese!!!!!!! His lessons are paying off. We can also both count in Chinese now. Wow!!!!!!
We are so cold!!!!!!!!!
Happy 2014 to all!!!! James is with his college buddies who came to visit from America (so he will be writing the next blog about their trip). The new year brought some incredible weather today (a sunny warm San Diego style day...what a relief from the wet cold) so 2014 has had a great start. I apologize if there are more typos than normal in this blog since my editor is not here to proofread :)
Those duck slippers are a hoot!!!
ReplyDelete