I do not know how other foreigners spend Chinese New Year in Taipei, but as far as I am concerned, this year has not been much more exciting than the last (which I mentioned in another post ). I think that if you have no family or girlfriend / boyfriend in Taiwan, it is quite hard to find something to do during the Spring Festival. The city seems to come to a standstill. Even some coffee shops, restaurants and Eslite bookstores are closed. Yesterday evening I took a walk around to see if there was something going on. I have to confess that I was quite disappointed. Perhaps I went to the wrong places; but I knew of no others. There was no particularly festive, special atmosphere, no excitement in the air, no happiness emanating from the people, and there were not even remarkable street decorations. How comes it that during the most important festival in Taiwan, everything seems so somber, and a veil of melancholy descends on this city? Or have I just imagined all this? Ma