Last test and New Year's Eve

I got back my 8th and last test today. So, on my 8 tests, I've scored: 93, 95, 84, 90, 90, 88, 93, 85 for an overall average of 89.75. There are almost daily homework writing exercises and other "small" tests so I'm guessing I'm right at about 90% average for the class. We have one Final Exam on the last day of class next Friday. We have 20 minutes to read a story in Chinese and then the teacher will ask us to answer questions about the story orally in Chinese. I'm not sure how it will go, but at least I don't have to worry about writing any Chinese characters, that's a first.

Tomorrow night is New Year's Eve and they will be counting down and setting off fireworks from "Taipei 101" the tallest building in the world (the building in Dubai isn't finished yet, so Taipei 101 still holds the world record). This may be the last year they will light fireworks on the building, so it should be a memorable event. This is picture from last year's display, pretty amazing:

On New Year's Eve we are going to downtown Taipei to watch the Taipei 101 fireworks display. The following morning we are going to take a train and travel to the east coast of Taiwan to visit the city of Hualien for three days. The Hualien coastline is supposed to be very beautiful with mountains, waterfalls and the largest marble gorge in the world. I hear that they don't speak much English there, so I'll get a good chance to test my Chinese.

Happy New Year!

Jim