Goodbye, Year of the Dog and Hello, Year of the Pig! There's nothing quite like celebrating the new year with friends and a foot massage! With schools and offices closed for a week, we've had a chance to try some new things. Yesterday, McLeod (happily) endured his first traditional Chinese reflexology foot massage, and while there were some moments when he nearly yelped with pain, his feet felt fantastic afterwards. 
February 18 marked Day One of the Chinese lunar year and the first day of Spring, and though it is now nearly the end of the month, the celebrations continue, with fireworks and loud, crackling strings of Chinese firecrackers sounding off all day and most of the night. Chinese tradition holds that the fireworks scare away monsters, but I'm pretty sure most folks also think it's a whole lot of fun. We even launched a few fireworks ourselves on New Year's Eve, with a certain group of expat hubbies deciding to sneak down and set off the leftover stockpile at 2am a few nights later. They thought they were blending in with the other Taiwanese revellers. However, American voices shouting "WoooHooo!" and "Fire in the Hole!" pretty much gave away who they were. They were only in the doghouse (pighouse?) a little while, though, because it was awfully funny. Though offices and schools are only shut down this week, the festivities continue for 15 days total, ending with the Latern Festival on March 4th. I'm guessing that March 5th will be the first night I sleep really well! The kids have had a ball, especially since friends have given them red envelopes of money and that people everywhere have candy sitting out. They even agreed to dress up a bit for some CNY pictures. Getting a picture of them both standing still and smiling at the same time is always a bit of a challenge, especially since they make me laugh and so, jiggle the camera. Singing our hearts out at KTV
Leading up to Chinese New Year, I was busy on assignment for Centered on Taipei magazine, writing about KTV, the much-beloved Taiwanese past time of singing with friends in a karaoke studio. I really wasn't sure what to expect as I arranged a Girls' Night Out at PartyWorld KTV. I had been assured by sources (i.e. the COT editor) that we would find PartyWorld to be a fun, safe, classy environment. I still imagined a rather smoke-filled lounge with American Idol Wannabe's stumbling onto stage, propelled by liquid courage. Instead, fellow moms and I were pleasantly surprised to be ushered into our own private party room where we could dine, chat, laugh and of 
course, sing our way through roughly 60 songs over four hours. Since most of the music (at least the songs we knew) was from the 80s and early 90s, we also had a great time talking about albums we'd wanted to buy as kids, laughing about prom themes, and remembering all those late nights at college. It was a nice break from the daily routine of fixing dinner and helping with homework, and it turned out to be a great bit of bonding for a group of strangers in a strange land. Salt and Bread (and only a little frost bite)
Last night brought another new experience for us: Russian cuisine plus drinks at sub-zero temperatures. As our final hurrah before returning to work, several couples decided to try out Salt and Bread. This Russian cafe featured good food (lots of saurkraut-and-potato-garnished beef and sausages, caviar appetizers, and tummy-warming soups) and a first-rate bakery and ice cream bar. The highlight was a freezer-turned-vodka-bar where patrons could bundle up in giant parkas and get a feel for those Siberian nights. My Deep South constitution allowed me to last about 5 minutes in the ice bar, even with the parka, before I headed back out to my warm sausage dumpling soup and beef stroganoff, but some of my New England counterparts were braving the cold in their shirt sleeves by night's end. (I'm pretty sure I heard them say something like, "We're from New England. We laugh at the cold.") As an added bonus, one member of our party won the lucky draw for roughly a case of Russian Baltika beer for our group to take home. Perhaps we'll break it out and reminisce about those long, cruel months in the salt mines?
