A weekend in Tongxiao

After the excitement of Thursday, Friday was an ordinary day.  I did my last five Halloween lessons, and let me just say, Halloween is over.  I'm done doing the Frankenstein impersonation, and done being chased by kids begging for candy.
      Friday night, I went to dinner in Zhunan with Peggy, Thomas, Mandy, Linda, and David.  We ate at a little outdoor place, and had steak and noodles with an egg, with black pepper sauce on top.  Very good, they made it to order, and brought it to the table still sizzling.  We walked back to the station, and David (who is fluent in Chinese, and I don't know how many languages) helped me buy minutes for the phone.  When I got back to the apartment, the Yangs (my landlords, I just learned their name today) had company.  I didn't want to bother them, but they asked me to sit down and have tea with them.  I met Mr. Yang's mother, and Rose's mother was there too, she lives here, and about five other retired teacher friends of theirs.  Their son, Nick, translated because he was the only one who speaks English.  I tried some authentic Taiwan Black tea.  They like it strong, and with no sugar.  I only had one cup, if I had another, I probably wouldn't have slept all night.
  This morning, I woke up at about 7 to the sounds of fireworks in front of the building.  Most of the time, it sounds like the building is going to blow up, but I've gotten used to it.  Reminds me of my childhood, ha ha.  While I Skyped with Aunt Dawn, I happen to look out the window, and saw a balloon arch in front of one of the buildings, and a bride going in.  From what I understand, weddings are a huge deal here, the bride has several outfit changes, and the meals are huge.

At 11:30, I went to lunch with Nick and his grandmother (Mr. Yang's mother).  They heard that I really liked dinner on Friday, so they took me to lunch in Tongxiao to have the same thing.  It was just as good as the one in Zhunan.  This was the first time that a foreigner had ever been in the restaurant.  I learned the name of the dish, I will definitely be back.

After the usual afternoon nap, we drove to the grandmother's house, just outside of Tongxiao, and she showed me her house, and her garden.  She makes what they called "Chinese knots," and they're beautiful.  There are hundreds, all over the house.  Someday my house will probably look like that, but with cross-stitch pieces.  

I didn't get any good pictures of the garden, or the pool.  The pool was empty, because she can't take care of it anymore.  I told them my grandmother used to have a garden that size.  But she never had a pool with a live crocodile in it.  This one did, at one time.  I had coffee again, and seaweed crackers.  They like to snack here.  She kept trying to teach me Chinese words, but I kept forgetting them.  I do remember the words for pomelo, black tea, and peanut.  I just can't spell them.  We stopped at their family friends' place on the way back and had more tea and snacks.  The wife showed me purses that she sews, they were better than any Vera Bradley I've ever seen.  I had dinner with the family, chicken, some vegetables and fried rice.   

So far, it's been a good weekend.  This next week is going to be crazy again, the FET's have to perform in a festival on Tuesday, and then we have mobile English village on Wednesday.