New Year's

Hey everybody!

I am sorry that I have been so bad at updating lately, but my life has been busy. You all know that I had a very different Christmas that was more about school and activities than about celebrating the birth of Jesus. But I can ensure all of you that I took revenge on New Years.

Even though the 31^st of December is not the actual New Years Eve in Taiwan (they celebrate the Chinese New Year which this years is on the 3^rd of February) people still celebrate it together with the rest of the world. And this year New Years was bigger than ever, as Taiwan in year 2011 has been independent for 100 years.

    So when it turns out that you actually are in the capital of Taiwan on the biggest New Years ever, I figured out I HAD to go and se the world famous fireworks on Taipei 101 – once the world’s tallest building! This year the fireworks came with a big concert showing a bunch of Taiwanese artist, but to get a chance to see anything it was necessary to show up at the concert place early. So me and the to other exchange students from my senior high school (Jane from Canada and Chelsea from USA), got off school at 12 o’clock and got the concert place at 1 pm where we got a wonderful spot. And yes – we had to wait for 6 hours for the concert to begin, but when you are the only foreigners in a big crowd of Taiwanese people at a very Taiwanese event, you quickly get attention, so before the concert started my friends and I had already made a bunch of new Taiwanese friends.

When waiting for the concert to start. From the right: Jane (Canada), me, Chelsea (USA) and new Taiwanese friend!

   

The concert was amazing. It is hard to say what made it that good. Maybe I’ve gotten used to Taiwanese pop music. Maybe I was happy because of the good company of my friends. Or maybe I was just overwhelmed by the energy coming from the 850.000 Taiwanese people who had come to see the concert. Actually I think all of it had influence on the best New Year’s Eve ever.

    When the top name Mayday went on the stage, people simply exploded, and just as the energy was highest it was time to count down for 2011. A countdown that, for me, came with sorrow as well as happiness. Sorrow because I realized how much of my stay is already completed here: time that I will never have back, but that will for always be in my heart. Happiness because I know I have so many good things to come. And so it came. 2011. Taipei 101 exploded in colours, Chinese symbols and a frightening but yet beautiful dragon. Just as I expect the rest of my exchange to be: colourful, maturing, frightening but yet beautiful.  

Now we have the 11^th of January, and so far 2011 has definitely lived up to my expectations.

    At a replacement test I had for my Chinese course on the 27^th of December I managed to jump from the second worst team (out of 4) to the best team. It is hard, as lot of the students in my new team already had studied Chinese for 1 year or more when they came here. On the other hand, I am glad that I really get to make some progress.

    Then yesterday I went to make a deal about some Guzheng classes at a music school. For those of you, who do not know what a Guzheng is (I didn’t know when I came to Taiwan), you should try to google the word. It is a traditional Chinese instrument that I find both very beautiful to listen to and look at. I am going to have class once a week for one hour, and so, the next thing is to buy an actual Guzheng. The prices vary (a lot!), and I do definitely not have enough money to buy the best one. But I am going to buy one, that is for sure, and then I’ll have to send it back to Denmark with snail mail (I wonder if my dad is passing Taiwan?).

Now, I very soon have winter holiday, which means one month off school of which I will spend one week in Japan, Tokyo with some students from my school and the exchange student from Canada Jane. I don’t know a lot about Japan, but everyone I ask says that Japan is clean, so I guess that is good… I look forward :D

Eventually I just want to whish all of you the best year in your lives so far, because that is what I am going to make mine!

Love you all

Julia J