2019 愛您依舊 -- Loving You as Before!

#2019-0101

Happy New Year! ... In Mandarin Chinese the number 2019 sounds like "ai nin yi jiu" (愛您依舊, meaning "still loving You"). Young people love to use this phrase in a romantic way; are you curious about how an old couple (like Jean and me) spent Yuandan, the very first day of the year?

An entire year ago, Jean and I went to McDonald's to have breakfast; that was the way we celebrated the previous Yuandan (on January 1st, 2018). Now both of us remembered that, and we decided to do it again for this New Year's Day.

However, just because I overslept this morning -- it was already 9 o'clock when I got up. Jean said she was so hungry that she would not walk out to McDonald's for breakfast; actually, she didn't say she was hungry; she told me that she felt uncomfortable with her stomach. "Oh, dear! What do we have to eat at home, then?" I asked. She said, "We have danbingpi (= egg-pancake pastry) and dan (= eggs) in the refrigerator. Are you able to make some danbing (= Taiwanese egg-pancake, shaped like a crepe) for breakfast?"

"Sure, I can make it," I exclaimed with excitement. I have never done cooking since I got married. But since this is the first day of 2019, I would try something new; I'd like to make danbing at least, at this special time, as Jean wished. (She always wished that I could have started learning to cook, in case ...) Well, look at the 2nd and 3rd photos below, and you'll know I was right when I kept telling my wife that "pēngrèn bìng fēi nán shì" (= cooking is not difficult). Ha ha!

Anyway, later in the morning, Jean and I took a walk in the Memorial Park of Taiwan Provincial Assembly; and then we had simple lunch at Niu Jia Zhuang (牛家莊; photos 4 and 5 below showing the decorations of the noodle bowls). And after taking a nap at home, we went to the dried paddy fields near Asia University Hospital and enjoyed the beautiful (and colorful) flowers growing over there in this particular season. See photos of "garden cosmos" below, which we call pōsī jú in Chinese. By the way, we missed our children and grandchildren so much on this particular day that we tried to talk with them in the evening, by means of videophone (see the final 5 photos).

Thanks and praise to the Lord, who let us have a really wonderful day today; may the Lord continue to guide us in 2019, so that we will do what is right: "ai Nin yijiu; still loving you, or loving you as before!"