A great big crazy straw chicken... at the Green Onion - Green Scallion Festival

Woke up late (2pm) and went to Aunt Annie's to make fried sweet balls. There were three kinds: taro root, green bean and sticky rice, and taro root with banana in the center. The taro is soo~ purple. But my camera has a hard time with that color, so you can't really appreciate just how purple it is... oh well.

I called my dad at midnight... he sounds better. Over Thanksgiving 2 guys hit him on the head while he was delivering pizza and he ended up in the Wichita hospital for head traumas. He can speak, but he'll trip over words like 'speech therapist'... I think he has trouble mostly with words he doesn't use often. I feel so bad for him. At least he's stop bleeding from the ears... he doesn't have email either, so I can't send him an e-card.

Today woke up around 10am then later A-ma called me to go over to A-jyog's place. Well... A-jyog is where she goes to gamble (Here, gambling in house is illegal), so I'm not sure why she wanted me to go there... went there, talked a few minutes w/ everyone, listened to A-ma insult me, then A-ma sent me on my way. ? so strange.

A picture of (most of) the family. Can you find me?

Check it out. This weekend is the green onion festival. Some ppl were carving mud animals for display. Here's a preview:

A mud house with a hen and eggs. Behind me is a sow suckling her piglets...

A water buffalo

The Chinese have this preoccupation with crouching or bending over to "fit" into pictures. I had to convince my aunt that it was ok for me to stand and have my legs "cut off" in the water buffalo picture above.

We also came across fields of yellow flowers. I guess the flowers will be used as green fertilizer. But I like the scarecrows they put up all over the place. It's not to scare crows, but to look nice!

Woke up ~7am and ran for the first time in a week... *groan* I hate running. Afterward, ate egg pancakes and soymilk... sorry no picture, too hungry to stop :D then slept. When I woke up at 2pm, Aunt Annie was busy, so I went on a bike ride and went into different clothes shops and tried my Chinese on unsuspecting clerks. Most shops are about this size:

	Really tiny with mannequins spilling out toward the street. Also, clothes here are not at all a bargain. Most blouses start at US$100! And it goes up! You can buy cheaper in the US. What the heck...?
I then saw a Chinese apothocary, and stopped to take some pictures. Luckily, a clerk was preparing meds and I caught her in action. She was kind of cute, so I asked her if she had net access, but she said no and seemed embarrassed, so I left... :D
	The streets here are crazy. If you're riding by on your bike, you can't really tell if someone is selling something or just piling their junk outside their door. Here, incidentally, are all the forms of transportation: taxi, private cars, bicycles, and the ubiquitous scotter. ...Notice how small the streets are. And ppl in NY complain about no parking spaces...

Then bought some fruit flavored milk and had my cream and raisin pastry for tea time...

I am totally addicted to this stupid Taiwanese soap opera. I always prided myself on never having been the kind of girl who watches soaps, but here I am glued to the tv. It has all the crying, slapping, pregnant and dying women like the American version, but I tell myself it's ok to watch it cuz I'm learning Taiwanese and Chinese... :P Oops... I hear the theme song on, l8tr g8tr.

I've decided to cook Christmas dinner for everyone, so I've been looking up recipes. Taiwanese ppl do not have ovens, so I have to figure out how I'm going to cook the turkey (probably stir fry) and the stuffing. I think I'll cover the stuffing with fat and skin from the turkey, then steam it in an "electric pot", or rice cooker. Not sure if it'll turn out. Anyway, some of the older kids are studying or working in other towns, so they can only come home on the weekends, so the date has been set to Dec. 20th.

Anyway, my pink chicky mug has been replaced :( It didn't hold much water and didn't have a lid, so I kept wishing for a larger mug w/ lid. Well, my grandmother finally noticed how little water the mug held, so she brought out a porcelain mug w/ lid! It even had a red dragon on it-- I was so happy... but then the next day, my grandmother bought a thermos because the porcelain mug was "too dangerous". Oh well. She then told me to use a rag to clean the thermos because factories are dirty... but the rag is this nasty old rag that's used to wipe the table.

The day of the Green Onion-Green Scallion Festival was a little drizzly... but so fun! I love festivals.

We first took some pictures again in the fields of yellow flowers and scarecrows:

Mud... dragon? Lion? Not sure, but the green "fur" is made up of green onions.	Enjoying the food... There were many stalls selling all kinds of tasty treats. I had some yam fries, green scallion pancakes, and "cool cakes" made from glutinous rice. So yummy...! Here's Jeff enjoying a green scallion pancake.
Enjoying the decorations. There were also Tai Chi demonstrations and kids performing...	There were flower arrangements and other artwork. Here are some minitures...
I thought the mountains made a nice backdrop for the cheerful tents.	Automan dolls demonstrating early rice processing techniques.
Here we are... with a great big crazy straw chicken.	My cousin Joyce... ahh~...

Well... here is my failed attempt at getting a decent haircut in Taiwan. Now I look like every other Taiwanese girl on the island:

I'm so pissed... my beautiful hair! My beautiful long hair is gone gone gone... I took a 3 inch lock home to remind me next time to never ever let another asian touch my head (and yes, I have deliberately edited out all the expletives, so use your imagination). Why is it that every time I go to get my hair cut, they're so eager to cut my hair really really short?!? What is the deal with you hairstylists?? Get a clue. Women want long hair!