The last week of 2009 went by pretty quietly for us here in Taiwan. We worked, watched TV and we just generally laid low. On Wednesday night, December 3oth, we went out to Chilis in Taipei for our official New Year's meal. We knew the crowds on New Year's Eve would be crazy and the chances of getting a seat at a nice restaurant were slim (no one would accept our reservations!) so we chose to go out the night before. I got my first fix of ranch dressing in over 4 months, so I was very very satisfied. On New Year's Eve after work, me, Mel, Christine and Mark took a crowded bus to Xinpu and grabbed a quick supper at *Subway* before taking a *subway* into Taipei to watch the 101 fireworks.
The subway wasn't as busy as I had expected- we actually got to sit- but when we got off the MRT the area around the 101 was swarming with people and the longer that we were there more and more people just kept pouring into the area. We knew getting home was going to be interesting! There was a lot going on to see and do, including a bunch of tents that set up selling snacks and souvenirs.
There was a lot of entertainment including some breakdancers and this lost member of the Village People (above) who was wandering around.
The 7-Eleven and Family Mart convenience stores had wisely set up tents outside of their stores to sell warm fish ball soups, coffee and beer.
Hooray for legal public drinking! We would come to regret these stupid beers.
There was a free concert at City Hall that we went to check out. There were SO MANY people there. We watched the concert- which was pretty amusing- for about half an hour, and as you can see from the above photo, we never got very close to the stage. Why did we leave the concert? After drinking that single beer on the street, I had to pee. I'm such a girl.
And thus began an evening-long cycle of waiting in line to go to various bathrooms. There were three or four port-a-potties set up around the 101 area but with millions of people around the lines were ridiculous!! Luckily, the line for the men's washroom was usually less than 15 minutes long but at the end of the evening Mel had to wait in line for 40 minutes to go to the womens bathroom! She finally got out of there with 20 minutes to go before midnight and the line was still a mile long behind her. I wonder how many ladies rang in the year in a Taiwanese port-a-potty?
The city shut down many of the streets so we were able to walk around without the threat of any scooters taking us out. That's Mel chilling in the middle of the road in the photo above, and next to her is Christine on the phone with Nareesa finding out that she wasn't coming to the fireworks. WHAT!
When we were walking around I was stopped by a girl and a guy, who I'm assuming was her boyfriend. She presented me with a rose and her boyfriend told me that she loves me and asked if I would take a photo with her. Sure, anything for my adoring fans! But seriously... who did she think I was? Jet Li? I proudly marched around with my rose for the rest of the night while Christine made gagging sounds.
Trying to get something to eat or drink was ridiculous. I mean, at one point Christine just wanted to get a drink at Starbucks and there were over 30 people in line ahead of her. Before getting our beer from the 7-Eleven on the side of the road we had tried to go into a restaurant for a drink but we were told that it would be a 3 hour wait, which would have put us at approximately midnight. It was crazy! I'm so glad we had our New Years meal the night before. So, we grabbed some snacks at the food tents- the only place where the lines weren't so crazy. The lady in the picture advertised her tempting sausages by wearing them like a necklace and twirling them around like a lasso. I wonder if she later sold those sausages that were wrapped around her body to people to eat?
For a snack we got skewered potato chips... yum!
With 20 minutes to go and Melodie out of the port-a-potty, we ran to try and find a good place to watch the fireworks. In theory it should be pretty simple to see the fireworks because they were being shot off from the world's tallest building, but it seemed like everywhere we went there were buildings or trees in the way. All the best spots to watch had been staked out hours earlier- there were thousands of people just sitting on the street where the view was clear when we got to the area at 7pm. I've never met a crowd that I couldn't sneak my way into and last night was no exception. We found where we wanted to stand and, with about 5 minutes to go, we squeezed our way in. We were heckled by the people behind us (who were sitting) and they screamed in nasally, accented voices "sit dowwwwwn", so we sat- which really wasn't easy considering how crowded it was. Then they heckled the people in front of us to sit and before long the crowd had obediently sat down and we had a perfect, straight-on, unobstructed view of the Taipei 101.With 1 minute to go the 101 went dark and then rings of fireworks slowly travelled up the length of the building until the whole thing just exploded. I took a video of the first minute (above) and I have to say, it was really damn cool.
It was pretty bright! This was the only time I can ever remember New Years coming without a proper 5,4,3,2,1 countdown. I assumed it was midnight because the fireworks went off, but I couldn't be certain. Happy New Year?
And then, less than THREE MINUTES later the fireworks ended and the 101 went dark- aside from the inane slogan "2010 Taiwan Up"- and millions of people rushed to get home first. This must have been the biggest build up to any event I have ever seen with the smallest payoff ever. Three minutes? THREE minutes!! We must have waited in port-a-potty lines for 2 hours and we are rewarded with THREE MINUTES of fireworks? Oh well, they were cool and at least they went off on time. In Korea they didn't set off the fireworks until 12:15. We thought they'd been canceled or something.
After that amazing three minutes we walked back to the MRT station with 5 million of our closest friends and tried to get on a train home. We got within eyesight of the station entrance when the crowd came to a sudden halt. There were police at the entrance to the station and they were only letting a certain number of people enter every 2-3 minutes. At first it was crowded, but it was bearable, but as we got closer to the entrance people really started pushing and it got kind of crazy. I wonder how many people got trampled to death last night? It could have happened pretty easily. Within about 20 minutes of our arrival we made it into the station, with Mark just slipping through as the officers blew their whistles. It felt like our family had just made it into West Germany together seconds before the wall went up. Win!
When we got into the station we were greeted with another line of people waiting to swipe their subway passes to get on a train. This line didn't take to long though- by the time I took this picture it had started to move and I had to run to catch up with my friends.
Lots and lots of people trying to get on a train home. When we got back to Xinpu we took a taxi home and check our watches- it had taken an hour and 15 minutes to get back. Usually it takes an hour, so I've really got to give props to Taipei City- even if they put on a brief fireworks show, they sure know how to get people out of the city in a timely fashion. It was a strange New Years Eve.. definitely the soberest one in a long time (don't judge!) and when we came home and changed into the fleecy hoodies that Old Father Time left us, we just sat around eating cheese and watching Cold Case Files. It was a fun night of people watching, peeing, rose-getting and hanging out, but next year I know a house party on Saunders Street that I want to go to :PHappy New Year, everyone!
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