Favorite Moments from Christmas in Taiwan

1. Making a Gingerbread house out of wafers. We realized halfway through that it looked like a Taiwanese house (tiles, all right angles, etc.) ,so we tried to make it look even more so by adding a scooter, clothesline, and a banana tree.

2. Dancing with students at our school’s Christmas dance. (…Even though the students were pretty much forced to dance against their will. Secretly most of them liked it, though!)

3. Acting out the Nativity Scene with the Primary kids at church.

4. “Secret Santa” gift exchange with the other teachers here. (As you can see, our gift wrapping supplies were limited… my favorite was the present wrapped in old progress reports!)

5. Running into Santa Claus. We were taking a train to Hualien on Christmas Eve and a Taiwanese Santa (complete with a shaving cream beard) came down the aisle passing out fish flavored candy.

6. Hanging out our stockings. We met up with some the other teachers at the hostel on Christmas Eve and they had us set out our “stockings” which were all filled with mahvelous things in the morning!

7. Christmas dinner!  After arriving in Hualien on Christmas Eve, we were STARVING!   After looking for a place to eat, we finally found some delicious dumplings and steam buns at a little restaurant in Hualien.

8. On Christmas day, we spent most of the day riding on scooters and walking around Taroko Gorge. It was kind of cold & rainy, but Taroko was beautiful, so it was definitely worth it!