Christmas is coming!

I decorated my Christmas tree tonight! Click the link to see pictures. I like getting into the Christmas season with friends and students. Most people here don't put up their own tree, though that is changing, and there are Christmas decorations all around the city now. And Starbucks has my favorite drink back: the toffee nut latte! It's still been quite warm out until today, when it finally dropped to 10 degrees. Now it really feels like winter! My updates have been quite scarce I know, but I did write in my Chinese blog last month. I've also been to two weddings this month, which was interesting. One was a Christian/international wedding and the other was a very traditional Taiwanese wedding. Weddings banquets are an extended affair with a 10 or more course meal. Sometimes there are interesting/exotic things like sea cucumber, intestines and the like. There's usually a lot of meat and seafood. And at the international wedding I went to, foreign guests were even served chicken nuggets and french fries! The second wedding, I attended the family engagement ceremony, which was kind of like a tea ceremony. The bride-to-be served tea to her future husband and in-laws, and they placed red envelopes with money into the empty cups when they were finished drinking them. It was really interesting!