Saying goodbye to 2018

1st January 2019 1 By livinguktaiwan

Writing this on 1st January 2019.  Happy new year everyone!!

2018年除夕夜到朋友開的一家酒吧度過。 酒吧位於豐原,在台中市外。乘搭公車大約要一小時,經過台中洲際棒球場。台灣著名樂隊五月天當晚在哪裏表演跨年演唱會。 我隨便拍了一張棒球場外的照片,發了給幾位五月天鐵粉絲朋友,讓她們羨慕一下。酒吧賣的是近年新興的手工精釀啤酒。 釀酒場就在酒吧旁邊,我順便參觀一下。 當晚有現場樂隊表演, 有不少人很開心在跳舞。 差不多踏入子夜時,大家一起在倒數。很久沒有 在這麼興奮熱鬧的情況下度過除夕夜。

I can’t remember the last time I actually celebrated New Year, must have been quite a few years ago.  Last night I decided to brave the cold (yes it does get a bit cold in Taiwan) and went to a new years party held at my friend’s bar.


LAST TEASE OF THE YEAR

The bar is out in the sticks from the city and the bus ride took about an hour.  On the way, we passed by the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium.   I snapped this photo from the bus as a teaser for some of my friends.  The most famous band in Taiwan, Mayday (dubbed the Chinese Beatles) was holding  their new year’e eve gig here, saying goodbye to 2018 with 25k fans.  They are are massive in Asia, and the 250k tickets for the 10 gigs here were sold out within 15 minutes after they were released a few months ago.  I thought it would be fun to send the photo off to a couple of friends who are die hard Mayday fans to tease them.   And my plan worked!!  Sucesss!!!


3 GIANTS

Got to my friends place before 10pm and there were a bunch of people there already. 3 Giants is a craft beer founded by two South African brothers and an Irish guy in Taichung.  You may (or may not) remember a few months ago I went to a local beer festival. That time 3 Giants had a stand there but I got a bit distracted by all the other stands and didn’t get round to try their beer.  New year’s eve is as good a time as ever.

The microbrewery is on site and you can see it from the bar area.   I took the chance to go inside and poke around.  It’s always good to know where the stuff you’re putting inside you comes from.

LIVE BAND

At around 10pm the band had set themselves up in the tent outside the bar.  The crowd was starting to fill up, not a massive crowd as this was more of a private party.  And also you have to bear in mind this is out in the sticks, outside of Taichung city which isn’t exactly one of the most cosmpolitan cities in the world.  Anyway, it was a good enough crowd for a new years eve party.


ME AND MY FRIENDS

Here’s me and April, the beautiful bride to be, who invited me over.

Some of April’s friends whom I met at the party.

And here’s Adriaan, one of the owners of 3 Giants and the lucky groom to be photobombing us.

April is a wine connoisseur, and runs wine appreciation events in her spare time.  That’s a tad bit of an irony given her other half sells beer for a living.  Or perhaps that’s a perfect complement.  Anyway, sometime during the evening, she figured the wine glass wasn’t big enough and her boot could hold more drinks, and starting pouring it into her boot!!!  Ha ha!  Just jokng.  It was just a small spillover accident.


SAYING GOODBYE TO 2018

And that’s how I spent my the last day of 2018. Celebrating with some very good friends saying goodbye to 2018 and welcoming a better and brighter 2019.