Friday 8 February 2013

Yay for fun mail...

Don't you love it when someone knows you so well, they know what you need, without you even saying it?! My parents (especially my mom) has this down to a fine art. My lovely parents sent me some fun mail, I came home from a pretty good study and was greeted by a red air mail box! Ohhhh Hello... I skip with it up to my room and find some nice little treats, but also some practical bits and bobs, stuff that I need. Just the little things like face wipes and hair elastics...how did they know I only had one hair elastic left?! (I kept losing mine swimming in the sea at Kending and in the Philippines!) I find it hilarious getting so excited over hair elastics, but it is just so true, the best gifts are things you need, not things that cost a small fortune.
Mom and dad were also complete legends for putting the study watchtower in their too. I only had a Chinese one for this month, and lets just say, last weeks watchtower was a struggle. As much as my Chinese has improved, it's not that good yet! Thanks mom and dad!

It's Chinese New Year this weekend. I enjoyed having a not very christmassy christmas, but it's being made up for with a crazy lunar new year instead. The traffic is insane with people frantically buying food and things. Even riding on the scooter, where I can usually weave in and out of places, I'm now caught in traffic. I don't know an awful lot about Chinese New Year, but it seems to be a time where families get together and there are tons of traditions and superstitions they follow that have stemmed from mythical stories. Red is a prominent colour (thank goodness it's not purple) There are pop up market stalls with everything red and gold. Similar to Westerners with xmas, people will get into debt in spending so much on decorations, food and gifts during this festival. 

It gets me to thinking about traditions. How on earth do they come about to such a point that we are too afraid to break them? Who even comes up with the notion that doing or not doing a certain thing makes you lucky or unlucky?! Is it just a way of controlling the masses? I'm not against traditions, I do think some can be good and can be meaningful. But when it gets to the point of you just do this tradition because, whilst in reality you kinda wish you didn't have to. Then I have to wonder...why still do it? But of course this is easy for me to say when I haven't been brought up to hold any of these types of traditions...and have a bit of a hippie inside me! It will be interesting to hear the view from the Taiwanese perspective.

In 3 weeks today, by this time I'll be mid flight and nearly back on English soil...or concrete more than likely. It's a very strange thought. I think about all the plans I had in mind of what I was going to do and how I was going to spend my time here...some of it I've done, most of it I've not, but I've done other things I hadn't expected instead, which have been amazing life lessons.

My song of the day is Gym Class Heroes ft Ryan Tedder - The Fighter. Good for a bit of inspiration. Plus I love the piano intro and throughout the song. 

just what i needed...I feel an angel delight party coming on...

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