Half Term Holiday Day 6 - Halloween

In case you’re wondering what happened to Day 5, I didn’t forget about it. We had planned to go to the Fine Arts Museum, as I’d referenced earlier. The kids and I lounged around in the morning and left around 11am. We arrived at 11:30 to see a line which wound its way around the museum into the parking lot. After giving it 30 minutes in wait time, I began to see that the line wound its way up the stairs, and then wound around three times before one could see the sign which said ‘Buy Tickets’. I realized that all of the people in line were going to try to see the same exhibit we were…I have NO idea how they pack THAT many people in the museum. We decided to pitch the idea and we spent the day eating a nice lunch and lounging around…nothing exciting.

Saturday was Halloween in Taipei. While it is true that Halloween is not a Taiwanese holiday, there are many stores with decorations and a few places which were offering trick-or-treating. What I found are that all of the pre-schools and kindergardens celebrate the holiday; however, the older kids are mostly left on their own to find an American community in which they can trick-or-treat. Brianna had managed to spot a sign advertising a haunted house and celebration in Tienmu square, which is up the street from our apartment. Knowing that a lot of expats live in Tienmu, we figured this would be as good as it gets and decided to check it out late that afternoon.

Before we went to the Halloween festivities, we began the day with some new friends, the Hodowanys, at an American brunch (THANKS again Judy and John for a GREAT treat!). We then split up a bit to do some shopping and errands. Terry, the kids, and I stopped by an arcade where Terry and I tested our strength. Oh yeah...I beat him that first round 12-11; however, he beat me the next 11-12...so I suppose we're equally as strong (thankfully my man is comfortable enough with his masculinity that this didn't seem to bother him :)!!). Our family then went to the Taipei Coffee Festival, as Terry and I are STILL on a search for a good cup 'a joe here. What we're finding is that there are some decent places out there, but the beans are quite expensive. While Taipei does grow and roast its own beans, it is a small market and therefore highly priced. Sigh. For now, we'll stick to asking Terry's co-workers to bring our favorite coffee beans from CA when they come to Taipei (THANK YOU McCarthy!!)

Later that afternoon, we met up with the Hodowanys at Tienmu Square for the Halloween festivities. When we arrived, it was PACKED…and HOT HOT HOT. At 4:30pm, it must have been about 80-85 degrees. This Halloween was definitely the warmest I could remember! At first, it simply appeared to be a bunch of booths with people selling crafts, food and stuff. However, we saw a sign for a haunted house, and decided to give it a go. I have to say…the Taiwanese did a pretty good job. While this haunted house was not quite as elaborate as those we see in CA, it had plenty of good stuff. There were some simple wood coffin-outlines, a few grave sites, and lots of black cloth draped here and there, creating a labyrinth-effect. The creepiest thing which really scared the kids were the various teenagers dressed in ghoulish make-up, who jumped out at every corner. THAT was pretty creepy…even I jumped when someone grabbed my ankles!

After the haunted house, we saw that a few girls playing MC were going to start some kind of show. While we couldn’t really understand much of what they were saying, Judy, her children, and mine decided to sit and watch while the dads talked shop. Within a few minutes, the MC’s were asking for volunteers to come up on the stage to participate in a game. Judy’s daughter, Audrey, was one of the first to volunteer. Not to be outdone, Elaine raised her hand and was soon whisked away up onto the stage. Mind you…the whole thing is in Mandarin!! While Elaine stood there looking as cute as can be, the next thing she knew, a microphone was shoved in her face and people were screaming at her to shout something out…I think she managed to shout ‘Tienmu’. Next to her, Audrey, who can understand both English and Mandarin, took up the slack and shouted ‘Tienmu gou sen me gui’ (Tienmu…what’s happening!). The surprising thing in all of this was the smile which appeared on both Elaine and Audrey’s face and participating. I was so proud of Elaine for not being shy and walking right up there…even though she had NO clue what was going on!

After the kids took their turn screaming (I think there was a prize for being the loudest), we were treated to a dance troup (dancing to Boom Boom Pow, which, along with ‘Poker Face’ is ALL we hear around here!!) and fire-throwers. While the dance troup was fun for the kids (VERY amateur, but hey, one couldn’t beat the price!), the fire throwers were really fun to watch. All of the acts were amateurs who were volunteering their time to perform, but still very fun to watch. We managed to keep everyone sitting and watching for about 1.25 hours!

After the show, we all hopped in a few cabs and had the best pizza we’ve had since arriving in Taipei…Alleycats thin crust. Yummy (Thanks John for introducing this to us!)!!

To ensure that the girls didn’t miss out completely on Halloween, we stopped by 7-11 on the way home and bought a bunch of candy. Terry and I then took turns hiding in the bedrooms while the girls, dressed in costume, knocked on our doors and said ‘trick-or-treat’. While it wasn’t the same, we tried to stay as true to tradition as we could. Certainly we ALL miss the pumpkin-carving, the baking, the smell of a warm fire and cookies baking. We miss riding our bikes through Golden Gate Park admiring the changing of the leaves. We miss our friends and the Halloween parade and the AWESOME haunted house on Shearwater Court. While the holiday of Halloween found us all a bit homesick, I’m thankful that it wasn’t quite as bad as I was expecting. We found that the company of new friends helped to lessen the homesickness and helped us to create new memories which I know we’ll cherish for a lifetime.