My parents took me down to the Grand Hyatt for a full Thanksgiving dinner. It was really good! It was Chinese style since there was turkey and mashed potatoes but also a lot of Chinese food available. I ate lots of turkey with gravy and then a shrimp salad. I would pick out all the green onions and then eat all the shrimp. I then ate a big piece of pumpkin pie. We had some new friends join us for dinner. I liked playing with them because they were around the same age as me.
Before dinner, there was a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in the lobby of the hotel. The program went on for too long because all these famous people kept going up on stage to give speeches before the tree was lit. My dad got to take pictures with some of the celebrities. They were impressed that he knew who they were. Then finally they lit the Christmas trees and just before Santa came out, they set off firecrackers that made me cry. A lot of other kids were crying as well. Santa came out with two Santa girls, not elves, and passed out candy to all the kids. We had to fight with the TV camera crew to get close to Santa. It was a very different Thanksgiving/Christmas experience.
The first picture is me and Santa's Girls. The second is my dad and two Taiwanese celebrities. The third is me and Santa – he's actually the pastry chef at the Hyatt. The last picture is us in front of Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world.
P.S. My mom figured out how to make the portrait photos come out the right way. Thanks tech-savvy people!
