The last two weekends have been a busy time for John and I.  We had a staff party two weeks ago at a seafood restaurant in B?nqiáo to celebrate the beginning of Chinese New Year.  Our co-workers also used this as an opportunity to say good-bye to us and to wish us luck on our upcoming travels. 

This was our last time together as a staff and we enjoyed a great meal.  The highlight of the meal was fresh lobster sashimi, served with a glass of lobster blood, which our crazy co-worker, David, downed in a heartbeat.  John and I were quite impressed as David usually turns down these special Taiwanese treats in the office. 

Raw lobster and sashimi.  Yum!  This is one of my favorite Taiwanese dishes.

Carol and Gavin, our bosses, kept us our glasses full with vodka and tequila.  Shortly after dinner, some rather rowdy card games commenced which involved a lot of drinking.  I really love Chinese and Taiwanese card games.  I got into the habit of carrying a deck of cards with me while I was in China, and have found that no matter the language ability, card games and dice games are something that everyone can enjoy and are also wonderful ice-breakers. 

Yvonne and I hamming for the camera.  She’s supposed to be a Charlie’s Angel and I am ever the ‘lil angel. 

I’ve also observed that non-drinkers can also participate in these games as they can accept a punishment in lieu of drinking.  Although I agreed to drink, my boss, Carol, seemed to get immense pleasure out of abusing the soles of my tender feet with a fly swatter! 

Once everyone was good and ripped, the door prizes were handed out.  I’ve never seen such strange prizes.  John and I won some Taiwanese body soap and shampoo and our big prize was, get this, a yogurt maker!  One of our co-workers won $200NT which is the equivalent of $6 US.  Woo-hoo!

Once the door prizes were handed out, the party started to shut down and most folks headed home.  We decided to join our bosses and a few other co-workers at a friend’s house, where the party continued until the wee hours of the morning.  Folks here sure like their karaoke.  Our friends had a whole room in the house that they’ve made into a karaoke room, complete with sliding glass doors, a huge sound system and 36” television screen!  Their English song selection was pretty bad, so I offered to sing a few songs in Chinese, but we ended up getting side tracked —again— by more drinking games. 

It was a wonderful weekend and one that we won’t forget.  It’s been a hard decision to move on, but we are leaving knowing that we’ve made friends for life.