Anyone for Christmas Dinner chez Reed next year ...?

As you can see, I seem to have lost my touch in the kitchen ! Not sure what happened, a part from over-cooking of course, but a 'brunch' was served up to NT and AG. And it was awful - Christmas day and we are being poisoned by some idiot in the kitchen ! AG and NT manfully tried their best, but the sausages were too disgusting ! Bacon was the crispiest you've ever seen ! Thank god the egg and mushroom were almost edible. The good thing is that it was all washed down (and the taste taken away) by a glass of French Red !

As I have been busy, I haven't had the opportunity to wish you all a happy new year and welcome you to 1996 ! Yes that is right - not a typing error - here in Taiwan it is 1996. But that is great, because it means that the High Speed Railway was built in minus 1 year and that I am now 30 years old ! That is until I read my Taiwanese National Health card which says I was born in 1954 - So when I am back in the UK I am 52 ! Confused - you will be ! This job is ageing my fast but that is ridiculous ! The reason for 1996 - it is 96 years since they 'broke away' from mainland chinese rule.

So back to Christmas Day. Inevitably we ended up going out late for a drink. Various work colleagues and myself met at the Amazon ! AG and myself ended up caught up in water and Heineken fight at the end of the evening - the good news is we are now honourary members of the River as we were given tee-shirts bearing the name of the pub. The rest of the week was quite quiet as we built up to New Years eve.

New Years arrives and I am on an early shift. Guess what ? One of my German colleagues is sick (in Germany - very convienient Klaus !) and I have to stay on an extra 4 hours at work. Not a great start as I had planned a siesta so that I would be ready for the big night out ! AG and I were to meet up with Pete Dog and his wife Mel in the Overtime bar, some 10 mins walk from my apartment. As I walked around the corner into the main square I could hear really loud 'what sounded like gunshots'. I thought we were under attack - infact it wasn't the anticipated Chinese invasion but the continuation of a massive street party with stalls and live music etc.

Upon meeting up with Pete it was evident that he and Mel had not had a great day. It transpires that the speakers from the street party were pointing directly into their bedroom and they had been doing sound tests all day. Pete had decided he was a little homesick and probably just sick of noise and soothed the problem with a couple of schooners of gin prior to meeting up with us.

Overtime was quiet at 20:30 so we went and got a Teppenyaki to eat (which was beautiful - I will take you there if you come out to see me). Teppenyaki is where you sit down around a large bar , which is essentially a hot plate, and the chef cooks in front of you and passes you the food as it is done. They have the best steak in Taiwan there, I swear. NT then joined us for food and to see in the New Year. So having filled ourselves up, it was off to get rip-roaring drunk as you do on New Years eve ! Pete of course was already there but AG and I did our best to catch up ! We went to the Amazons neighbour, Summertime, and had a few in there before going to the Amazon itself. The Amazon had FREE drinks between 23:30 and 00:30 - on any drink - and strangely the place was heaving. It was incredible to see so many people in such a small place ! We then went on to an area of pubs which AG and myself call 'Mafialand'. Named such because of the cars which drive around the area - they all have blacked out windows and are german brands. Apparantly I got very homesick at this time and ended up crying in one bar for ages. As for AG, he apparantly ended up (with me) sitting in leather chairs outside the pub, talking to locals and continuing to drink beer. It is amazing how fluent AG and myself become in Chinese under the influence of Heineken. You will note how the latter stages of the evenings descriptions begin with apparantly ..... need I say more !

Time has now moved and on January 5th 1996, 1 one year before the project started, and Taiwan High Speed Railway Corporation carried it's first paying passengers. Congratulations to them, but of course that means we are getting a step closer to the end of our contracts. Having said that I think it is going to take a while to get the locals up to speed. It is not through a lack of education (far from it) but through a lack of training, experience and railway knowledge. All the Taiwanese have been recruited because of their language ability. Good luck to them as they are all really nice people and deserve to do well. And good luck to Kevin Lee, one of our locals, and his wife who are having their first child this week (The above group photo is of our successful training group: AG, Stephen Barclay, Paul Hwang, DJ, Me, Sandra Lee and Matt Payne).

That is about all except to say good luck to Innes Ross who has retired from the railway and a quick mention of my good friend Jason Jones, whom is coming out to Taiwan at the end of Feb. I can't wait for you to get here Jason and bring plenty of money - the beer is not cheap, nor is the train and I have an inkling you may want to indulge in both !

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL !!!!!!! I HOPE 1996 FULFILLS YOUR DREAMS