New Year's Eve

My New Year's was a bit different from what I'm used to this year... of course. For one, again, I had to go to school, but that wasn't so bad because I only had 4 classes, one of which was spent in the library, one in actual class and two in a yoga class. That was pretty interesting apart from the teacher yelling at me, Julie and Imme in Chinese. My legs hurt from that. One of the last moves she made us do was laying on our backs and placing our feet above our heads. She said if we couldn't do all the way to our heads, it was okay, but we were doing it and we weren't hurting, so we ended up surprising everyone with doing it the whole way! I had no idea I was so good at yoga.

After school I had Chinese class, which ws weird because we had already taken our exam and we were back in our old classes yesterday. Turns out Rotary thinks we cheated so we had to retake the exam. Well, I can say honestly that I didn't cheat, but there were some languages going around the classroom that could have been sharing answers. Unfortunately, we didn't get to redo the speaking part. But this exam was a lot better than the first one, I actually knew most of the answers.

After that, I went to Taipei 101 to get a good seat to watch the fireworks with my friends Alyssa (USA), Josette (USA), Boyce (USA), Miguel (Mexico), Corinna (Germany), Rebekka (USA) and Aurelia (France). the MRTs were already packed and it was only about 5:30! We managed to find a good space and kill 6 1/2 hours of time until the fireworks started at midnight. I think someone told me it was the biggest fireworks display in the world, they used 22 000 fireworks, it was pretty impressive! I have a video that isn't on my computer yet, but hopefully I'll get my facebook videos and pictures updated this weekend. We have today off school which is great because I didn't get home until 3:00 this morning. Miguel took us to the bus stop, but the streets were so packed that no busses were coming so me and Rebekka took a map and tried to walk to an MRT station closer to our homes. Ugh! It was like arguing with Chelsea! We found one on the brown line which is like an hour ride from where we live and we didn't want to experience Zhongxiao Fuxing and Taipei Main Station, which are the busiest stations anyway, on the most crowded night of the year! So we found a bus stop where our bus stops, but the bus never came and after some arguging, I told her we ahd 3 options: 1) We wait for the bus 2) We go back to the MRT station and brave the transfer stops or 3) We find a taxi to take us home. After about 5 minutes, she finally decided to try to find a taxi, but most of them were full and even when we found empty ones, greedy Asians jumped into them before we could reach for the door.

In the end, we decided to go to the MRT, by then it was almost 2:00. In the end, it was a bit later after the fireworks so it wasn't as busy, but Zhongxiao Fuxing was pretty bad. We ended up meeting Dan (USA) at Taipei Main, he lives at the same stop that I live at, so he made sur we got on the train and off at our stop. Like I said, It was about 3:00 by the time I came home. My host mom left a little nightlight plugged in at the door because all the lights were turned off so I could see my way to my room. My host dad came out of his room to make sure it was me and that I had a good time. I have to say, I only have 1 year in Taiwan, I don't regret going to 101 at all. I think I would have regretted it if I didn't! My first New Year's in a big city! Haha, when it's midnight back home they might show the other New Year's celebrations in different countries, look out for Taiwan!