Halloween

Now in Taiwan, Halloween is not celebrated as it is in the West. In fact the only thing they can associate with is the odd hollywood flick they've seen... but being an English scool; Shane has a tradition of doing something for the big day... so come that All Hallows Eve; I arrived at school to find that Nick (Art Grad. from NYC) had decorated the building with skulls, bats and other ghoulish images... in the staff room on my desk were 4 bags of sweets (candy for US viewers), a plastic sword and black cloak. I think the TAs had missed the point that its the children who are supposed to dress up.. but keen to receive my pay-cheque at the end of the month, i donned the black cloak borrowed some make-up, bloodied my sword and barged into the classes on my list... most took quite well to the performance (Oscar winning I tell ya), some were a little too scared of the sword to take the sweets (which meant more for me later) but then one class of heroes decided to take on the monster and broke my sword... don't know where there sweets ended up!
The following weekend, we heard there was going to be a Halloween party in Changhua.. so me Kate, Nick and Sam all dressed up as vampires and walked down to Yuan lin station. We got some funny looks and most people gave us a wide bearth... but thankfully we provoked no violence... the gothic scene hasnt kicked off in Taiwan yet.
When we got to the Sportsman Bar, it turned out that it was only a Shane party... I say only, there's now around 40 of us past, present and associates. I met the new teacher, Gemma from Middlesborough, who's gonna be taking over my classes when i go to Thailand and then cover Andre for 2 months. She's cool. Had a "me too" conversation with her; geography grad, speaks French, birthday same week...etc.
Linda was there as well (boss) and she's paid for us all to have a couple of drinks (so generous). At the end of the night there was loads of drinks left over, so it was a free bar. Didn't get back until 5ish... but good night!