In the US, he's known as Snuggles, but he doesn't care. FaFa is always delighted to see us.
New Year's Eve rolled around and the holidays entered full swing. Apparently, starting on New Year's Day people get about an entire week off, but the night before is when it all starts with everyone getting together for dinner. These meals take place in the home, and thus people venture out into the street markets buying crap in preparation. Ours was mostly catered by the Big Beard restaurant. Big Beard.
That's a lot of food for ten people. It doesn't even include another pork dish on the side and the hot pot. There's also a plate missing with four or five vegetarian dishes with only 2-3 pieces each that V's uncle brought. I was wondering to myself, "Why would he bother to bring so many dishes in such small portions?" And then I remembered that V's grandma is vegetarian and felt foolish. The whole duck at the end of the table deserves a close-up:
At some point during dinner, Ba just took the duck's neck and started chewing on it. Amazing. He's also the one that told me to try duck brain, by the way. Dinner wasn't all just a jolly good time though; I had to excuse myself for a solid fifteen minutes as the onset of my flu began to take full force. I don't think anybody missed me, since they were either too busy eating or being bothered by Popo.
Popo spent all of dinner going in, out, and around the dinner table, being a general nuisance. I think he was just so excited that there were so many people around. As soon as everyone left, he just collapsed onto the ground exhausted and fell asleep. The festivities ended, we cleaned up the dishes, and began to prepare for the next day, Chinese New Year.
The big day itself is an unexpectedly quiet day that you either spend at home with your family or outside, shopping. It actually sounds like the equivalent of a Japanese calendar New Year and is complete with its own Taiwanese version fuku bukuro, lucky bags. It was time to go get what I had missed out in Japan.
Sogo opened at 11 AM, and there was a certain bag that we had targeted. However, we weren't invested enough to go at whatever in the morning to line up with the crazies. We planned to leave the house at 9, left closer to 9:30, and got there around 10. There were already a lot of people, but not really as many as we had expected.
I would guess that there were about 300 people ahead of us in line. The cosmetics bags were the most popular and the hundred that lined up for those already had their numbers. The rest of the line was there in order to facilitate the rush into the store, where everyone would then get into the lines for the various departments. Our objective was the jewelry lucky bag on the 4th floor.
In retrospect, I think we could have planned our route better, but it's unlikely that we really had a shot at it. The line was well past full by the time we got up there. So instead we went up to the 8th floor for the electronics bag in hopes of winning a TV or a blender or something.
I directed her to which one to pick....and then.....
We won! Ok, so you can't really lose, but we ended up with an mp3 player which was advertised to be worth about $200. We paid $30 for it. The mp3 player is kind of a generic brand and comes in a super generic box but doesn't actually look half bad itself. Still, I was a little annoyed to find the store across the street selling the exact same mp3 player for about $50 or so. I don't know how they could claim it's worth $200. V thinks she can sell it online for around $60, so at least we have a decent business opportunity.
Now, with our business taken care of and plenty of time to spare, we decided to go check out Afternoon Tea. Afternoon Tea is actually a Japanese chain that serves up small cakes, pastas, salads, and the like. We've seen it in Sogo for years and have never gone because of the line that perennially occupies the storefront. I was really disappointed when I found out that Afternoon Tea doesn't actually serve afternoon tea...
The food was pretty good though. We ordered the farm salad sandwich, which is actually just a salad with pieces of crunchy toasted bread in it; quite enjoyable.
Also got a smoked salmon risotto which wasn't bad either. Afternoon Tea is pretty light Western fare and a nice option for a quick and easy meal. Not exactly mind blowing, but a pleasant break from shopping. Lately, every time we get Western food catered to Asian tastes, I get the craving for the terrible greasy real thing. We finished off with this marscapone tart thing.
As we continued shopping, we found out that there were lucky bags for coupons as well! It's really too bad we wasted our time eating and missed out on buying $200 gift cards for only $100. Clearly, we just weren't in the know and generally unprepared for the deals we could get.
The rabbits and I pondered what exactly had gone wrong. Couldn't figure out what they were looking at though. V purchased a Hello Kitty lucky bag as a consolation prize, but it was filled with crap. The bag itself is pretty nice and we can probably use it as a freezer bag if we wanted. A bit dejected, we headed home and once we got through the door, as if summoned out of thin air, my illness hit me like a storm. I spent the next 18 hours doubled over in our bed.
My last few days in Taipei were pretty quiet. Mama took us on a couple road-trips looking for sakura because I was going to totally miss them in Japan. Apparently the season for them in Taiwan is actually in January; however, since the winter season was especially cold this year, they just started blooming.
Turns out we were still a little early and most of the trees had only started budding. I'm glad I saw them though. 妈妈，谢谢你!
I learned that most of the lion dances and other festivities go on in the following week. Unfortunately, I had to leave, and that's really the story of my Chinese New Years. I just wasn't allowed to experience it to the fullest. We did get to play with some sparklers, though.
It's not just me; everyone looks gay holding sparklers. V especially had a good time with them.
We were a little worried that the sparks would scare Popo who was sleeping outside. He didn't care at all. He just came over after a while with this look like, "What the hell are those?"
I never knew my wife was so pro at sparklerying.
And now I'm back in Japan for the homestretch. V will be here in a week. A week ago, I was a combination of excited to go back to Chicago and sad about leaving Tokyo. Now, I'm just sad about leaving. Gotta make the best of it, kids!
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