It’s just been unreal to have a relaxing break from work this long weekend. Wednesday was a PD day at school with no kids, but it wasn’t all a barrel of laughs as we had to attend various workshops and I had to run two 50 minute ones back-to-back on blogging. In their wisdom, the air conditioning had been turned off at school making the rooms a sauna: it certainly hammers home the reality of who is considered important in the school and it aint the teachers! Wal came round on Thursday night to eat some of Cassy’s famous home-made rissoles and we managed to sneak a look at a UFC as well!

Thursday was pretty eventful even after a lateish start. We went down to the movies mid morning to watch “3.10 to Yuma” and the leads, Christian Bale and Russell Crowe elevated this western to a good standard. Afterwards we mosied down to Jaques for a French lunch and it was, as usual, magnifique. Cass was due to pick up her re-modelled ring from Joe the Jeweler, so I was persuaded to accompany her on the bus down. She has had her original engagement diamond and another we bought in Vietnam set as shoulder diamonds on her bigger 10 year wedding anniversary ring. It is very sparkly, even I have to admit! After a jolting ride in the hands of the typically kangaroo hopping Taipei bus driver, we were spat out downtown somewhere to receive said jewels. On the way back, we stopped at the Shilin night market for me to get my watch fixed at the watchmakers. They discovered the winding mechanism was faulty, so I have to pick it up in a couple of days. Afterwards, I boldly declared that we should catch the “next bus” and everything went swimmingly until we got near the BMW corner and the thing turned off in some strange circuitous route miles away from where we wanted to go. As irony had it, we were deposited opposite Jacques’ again, but this time without scooter so we walked home through a series of back streets. We got home just in time for me to go off to my Chinese lesson to have a horrendous time, forgetting everything from previous lessons and creating a look of despair on my teacher’s face that I hope not to see again!

Even though we had planned to meet up with a group of surfers/campers at Fulong on Friday, the swell had dropped and the wind had blown up making it an uninviting prospect. Instead, we decided to do a few jobs that need doing periodically. We took the car down to Carrefour and loaded the trolley up with 20 bags of cat litter and heaps of closet camel re-fills. After getting all this stuff home, I deposited the car back at school and we then watched a bit of stuff on TV. For some reason, I’ve had a bit of trouble with my car rego this time and I made yet another abortive mission to the post office to try to pay it and managed to get everyone in the place offering assistance in Chinese and some broken English when the counter assistant announced in a ridiculously loud voice for some help. After I dragged my highly embarrassed hide out of there I arrived home to find that Cassy had made the most delicious banana cake of all time, one which we are trying not to wolf down every time we’ve had a piece of it since!

We set off to Pointies mid-morning on Saturday for a fairly successful surfing trip and we both felt the relief of getting away from the city for a while. The air was cool and clean and the surf, while nothing like last weekend, provided some fun waves. It’s always about a 4 hour trip if we head over the mountain and back and it was amazing, as usual, to see how different the weather was up top. Visibility was only a few metres due to a very thick fog, it was rainy and cold, yet on either side of the mountain it was quite pleasant, even bright sunshine and hot here in Tienmu. On Saturday night we ventured down to the south east part of town to go to dinner at Tony Roma’s Macaroni Grill and we each had an excellent dinner of veal parmesan. We had a sampler of various dishes for entrée including some superb bruschetta, crab stuffed mushrooms and tender calamari. They weren’t satisfied with their first cooking of our veal, so as we had to wait 15 minutes (which I though was quite reasonable anyway) they gave us a dessert of caramel topping soaked Pannacotta for free. What a meal! We almost literally waddled home after such a feast and even this morning we still felt full. The Hsin Yi district is really quite spectacular, especially at night and we had loads of fun interacting with various street performers, “living statues” etc, who seemed to gravitate towards us for some reason. Another amazing sight was the troupe of beautifully trained dogs catching Frisbees and entertaining a big crowd in the forecourt of the Shinkong Mitsukoshi building. I’ll put a few more of these night shots up in coming weeks.

Today was an extremely lazy day: we slept in till past 9 and Cass managed to do some grocery shopping before the league test came on at noon. We watched that and exhilarated in the wonderful new breed of footballer on display as well as the result (58-0 to Australia) then we’ve managed to do precious little since. The royal “we” has crept in again, sorry: Cassy has been busy doing all sorts of jobs all day; it’s just me that hasn’t done anything!
Photos: The ring, Cass and Joe the jeweler, flags fly proudly for 10/10 holiday, dogs display their talents, us at Tony Roma’s, Cass interacts with an angel, Cass on the bus, Taipei 101 sneaks above Shinkong building at night.

Typhoon Krosa was on a relentless path of destruction, headed for Taipei city as we sheltered in the lower school library at 4pm on Friday afternoon. We were attending a quite moving and beautiful celebration for the life of one of our friends and colleagues who died early this week. Mary was a Kiwi and a much loved one, really full of life and energy who went home just a few months ago to seek some treatment for a diagnosed cancer. She always intended to beat it and return, but she deteriorated quickly in the last few weeks. It was just an amazing ceremony, a real credit to everyone involved. Lewy spoke fondly of her as did a few others. Beautiful music was played and sung, the assembled Kiwis sang a Maori send off quite stirringly: as much as I don’t like these events, if you have to have one, this was about as good as it gets. Lots of people will miss Mary and it brought back thoughts for us for our other friends and colleagues who have also died, and also died of cancer.

Friday night and Saturday just went wild. On Saturday, I watched as our massive and very thick and strong glass doors at the front bowed in quite alarmingly under the force of the typhoon. Windows and doors rattled and snarled, banging themselves in protest to such an extent that Virg’n Mary had huge saucer eyes and were zipping around just wondering where they should run and hide. We decided to draw the curtains in case the windows did smash in and try to block out the lashing and bashing by watching the calming and amusing “Ten Canoes” which Lewy had lent us. In the middle of the movie, the power decided to go off and we promptly found all our candles and torches and Cass ran the bath full of water. Usually if the power goes, the water is soon to follow and you need it for flushing the toilet etc etc. Mercifully, we sat in the dark for only the briefest of blackouts before we were able to resume normal programming!

When we got to sleep over the huffing and puffing outside we expected the big bad wolf to be still around with a vengeance on Sunday morning. We were surprised to be greeted by an eerie stillness and the sight of the carnage from the last few days was evident all through the neighbourhood. Dazed residents slowly emerged to start doing some fixing and tidying and there are massive piles of debris on every street corner awaiting a collection by the local government clean up guys.

Chris and Val called from their spot in Margaret River and described the most wonderful plans for a day trip: to be taken on a wine tasting tour along with gourmet cheese eating, visits to venison parks etc etc. With this in the back of our minds and mindful that my Mum will head off in a few days to the U.S. for magnificent tours operatic, musical and otherwise, we felt quite the unenlightened ones. So, off to the coast we went!
I had magnificent images of huge swells with off shore winds as the evil Krosa swept its way into the East China sea, but these dreams were soon shattered as in turn, the Pill box, Baisahawan, Green Ball, Jinshan and Pointies all had the most appalling slushy conditions. I was determined to get in the water and was just so glad that we persevered. After driving round the ravaged coast for 2 hours, the Cliff had just perfect condition! Better still, I managed to get a 3-4 second tube ride on one wave which absolutely made my day. Even better was the fact that Cass managed to capture nearly all of it on film…check pointyhat “The Green Room”. Starving hungry, we stopped at that great shop, 7/11, for some ice Starbucks caramel lattes and snacks: gotta love that “7”
Looking forward to a short week this week…two days of school, one day of PD (I’m presenting a workshop on “Blogs and Blogging” quite appropriately!) then we’re going to luxuriate in a 4 day holiday for the double ten Chinese holiday. Photos today are of some serious tree devastation straight across the road, Cass enjoying our 7/11 purchases and me on one of those excellent waves today!

Despite the fine weather and temptations to savour a beautiful day outdoors, Saturday was AFL grand final day and beers were being consumed at the ungodly hour of 11am. We were ensconced in the Green Bar, which opened early especially for the game, trying not to look at the gorgeous day outside, while enjoying the game on TV. There was quite a great crew of guys there and we had lots of fun and the usual banter, till we went off home in the late afternoon.

On Friday, Cass had met Wal and I at the Royal Host for tea around 7pm. I’ve described “the Host” on these pages before I’m sure. It’s a Japanese chain restaurant, a “family” restaurant, whatever that implies, although I must admit there are always large numbers of screaming kids flying around. I think the menu has lots of kiddy options so the parents are able to have a relatively civilized meal while the little scamps are kept quiet gobbling down some rubbish or other. Cass and I had the usual steak set which is pretty good: quite surprisingly good in fact. We had a good chat and then moseyed on home to start the weekend.

Afet5r all the “exertions” of the previous two days, we were quite content to just loll around at home on Sunday, letting the grand final buildup charge us along as the day progressed. We had the internet news going, the various footy radio chat shows and football calls streaming and steadily approached the 5pm (Taipei) kickoff time. I struggled out into the light of day to get some subway sandwiches, but that was about it. We only had a small crowd but it was good fun. A few guys couldn’t make it due to various family, study or overseas conference commitments, but our little crew had a good time. Lewy was first to arrive, then Sean then Wal eventually got in around half time with his promised Alleycats pizzas! Lewy has some strange aversion to cheese, so we heated him up a couple of pies so he wasn’t at all disappointed. After the game, which Melbourne won oh so comprehensively, Wal, Lewy and I had a nightcap down at the “Red Hut” a cool little bar/restaurant just down the road. We all decided that the weekend, although necessary, was just all a bit too much, so I, for one, have great plans to do something vastly more energetic next weekend, and something which does not require compulsory beer drinking as we worship various sporting heroes!

Cass was really busy last week, having to complete progress reports and also make her two monthly visit to the doctor at Veteran’s hospital to check her blood levels. This always results in terrific tales about the Taiwanese hospital system, the (excellent) treatment of we TAS teachers compared to the general populace and various other gems. I must admit I was surprised and impressed the other day when we caught a cab and Cass addressed the driver with some perfect instructions of how to get to school in Chinese! “Where did that come from?” I enquired politely. “You’re not the only one learning Chinese, mate” I believe was the reply! Apparently rather than follow Cassy’s other directions, one of the cabbies had taught her some gold…
Cassy has begun the annual stunning cultural festival of “Rocktober in her class, blasting out Silverchair’s “Straight Line” video on the big screen from her new data projector. 2NX in Newcastle has a lot to blame for: the kids here are certainly in for a rock’n roll education over the next month as a different Oz rock classic greets them as they arrive each day in October. All good fun!

Sorry this is a day late: too much football actually was enough on the weekend! Photos: a classic shot of Virg’n Mary on their red puffy shirt (even in this heat!), a snap from the scooter showing the night market MRT station and the shot of Virgil’s head that is now our “favicon”. A favicon (favourite icon) is that little square thing at the start of the URL address. If it hasn’t changed for you, I think you need to delete internet files to see it….if you can be bothered, it is kind of cute, and pointyhat boardriders has a new favicon too.

We really had thought that the sapping summer heat was on its way, but it came back with a vengeance this weekend, perhaps in response to the latest typhoon dragging its humidity curtain over the top of the island through the week, leaving behind clear, blue skies, which would have been incongruous with anything less than a good old Taipei baking! Cassy survived a fearful battering over three days and two days on the northern tip before (belatedly in my opinion) her camp was called off on Wednesday, only for her to endure “fun” activities at school on the remaining two days! The best thing for her, of course, was to sleep in her own bed and feel clean and dry.

Friday night for me was up at Gerry’s place for the preliminary final in the AFL and a great crowd gathered for the festivities. Gerry is a die hard Collingwood supporter and despite his bluster and what we thought was mis-placed confidence in his team, the Geelong cats were expected to deal with the Pies pretty easily. As it turned out the game ebbed and flowed, excitement almost turning to panic at times and it wasn’t till the last 10 minutes that the cats stamped their authority on the game. It was a terrific night filled with boisterous, blokey stuff, beer, meat pies and no re-introduction of the infamous pastie that caused all the trouble at grand final day last year…there is, however, still another weekend to get through before the “all clear” can be sounded!

Talk about a lazy Saturday: the surf was shot, so we decided not to do a run out to the coast. Instead we caught up with lots of insidey kind of things, like mindless trawling through the internet, reading papers and books, doing the grocery shopping (Cass) and eventuating in watching some good Aussie TV we had and getting some takeaway Alleycats pizza.

Sunday dawned and we had great intentions to do something a little more productive. One of our good friends is turning 60 next month and Cass was keen to get to the Jade Market and buy some things that she had judged would be just perfect color wise, considering some recent purchases made by said friend. As always the trip down on the MRT provided great entertainment, although I think I was a very poor substitute for “meeting Kathy on the dyke” and having a good jewelry type of outing. As much as I try, I cannot muster more than the vaguest enthusiasm for all the glittering prizes down at this market. The kilometers of aisles seem to generate sparkling wonderment in most females who enter, but I do get bored pretty quickly! I do acknowledge that the reverse happens in electronic stores, so I suppose I can just say that it all adds to the spice of life: imagine if we were all the same?! Cassy was lucky to find exactly what she wanted after a very short period and after I made some obligatory but pathetically feeble attempts at lowering the price, we walked away with our prizes.

As lunchtime was approaching, we decided to go a few stops and get out at Taipei main station, where we wandered down the underground mall for a while before emerging to street level, only to dive down again into the basement of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi building in the heart of the city. There is a comprehensive underground eat street here and we continued our theme of late of eating Thai food and got another curry set which was cheap and delicious. On the way in, we noticed with interest that the former Sky View entrance was sadly deserted with construction tape barring entry to a dusty corridor. The site of the entrance to the former highest point in the city with view deck was a little sad: we’d taken a number of visitors here and marveled at the view when we first arrived. I suppose it just can’t compete with the slick new Taipei 101, the world’s tallest with the fastest elevators in the world etc etc. The MRT proved it has lost none of its lustre however, as it zipped us home in record time to catch the last of the weekend’s football finals. Photos are of the Jade and gem market, a strange sign on the way, the underground eating area and the ubiquitous promotion girls who lurk around major shopping spots on every weekend.

At one stage on Friday evening I didn’t know where to look. Mick Fanning was slotting into an awesome, yawning barrel at Teahupoo on one TV while diagonally across the room the AFL semi final was just entering the 3rd quarter. To top things off, Gilly was blasting a Freddy Flintoff delivery over the pickets in the Twenty20 match between Australia and England. All I can say is: thank you for modern technology and satellite TV! All this and more in a tiny hole in the wall in Tienmu, sucking shows off the South African satellite feed, ABC Asia Pacific network and the Indian cable: we’re just too spoilt.

We were at the Green Bar to watch some footy and cricket after the end of two moderately tedious PD days. As is an on again/off again tradition at the end of these two days, faculty were invited to have a couple of drinks on the school at the Pig and Whistle. This went on to the Green eventually and then on home. Cass was pretty keen to avoid the crush at the Pig, partly because she just doesn’t like it and partly because she wanted some downtime at home before she heads off to Grade 8 camp this week. This yearly event is not her favorite time of year, but she is always very stoic and takes it in her stride. I’ve been known to whinge long and loud about my one night stay in comparative luxury, so I quite admire her approach! She’ll miss having Kathy around, but this will be partly alleviated by Kristin making a re-appearance this year. She’s been busy packing and getting the requisite supplies together, such as tiny disposable raincoats to put in her backpack: not an item of clothing Cassy normally has to hand!

We had a really good day yesterday. After a long iced latte (I had an iced latte caramel macadamia, whatever that is!) we wandered over to the Mitsukoshi complex in Tienmu to watch a movie. Prior to that I thought I’d whiz downstairs to FNAC, the electronics store to pre-order my iPod Touch. I’m getting the bigger 16 GB model and am really excited about it. I had to pay upfront, and it is due some time in October, the earlier the better for me! Cassy finds this excitement wildly amusing and I suppose it is a little strange, but I’ve held off buying a new iPod for years in the hope that they would bring a wide screen video model out. Not only that, but it is touch screen and has wi-fi internet capability. Obviously, I could go on and on here but in case you’re in the Cassy excitement factor camp, I’ll stop here! If you’re really interested, check this out and you’ll get the idea.
The movie was “The Brave One”, and we went along with only moderate expectations. It turned out to be really compelling, with a couple of star turns from the two leads, Jodie Foster and Terrance Howard. It had real suspense and plausible and genuine character driven scenes complementing the basic vigilante storyline. We’d give it a B for plot and A- for acting. After that we went to the 7th floor to redeem our “prize” for buying something: the FNAC salesman seemed very excited about it. It turned out to be a bit of a fizzer, just a 100NT$ gift voucher, but it did have a hidden bonus: we walked straight past the door of Thai Town restaurant and decided to have an early dinner. This is a very efficient Thai restaurant, certainly not exquisite Thai food, but tasty, fresh and clean. The staff members all seem to speak perfect English which is always a massive bonus! After our Golden Moon Shrimp cakes and green curries, we motored home to catch the end of the AFL footy. After receiving and sending text messages from Josh and Chad in Singapore and Coomba in Hong Kong during the game, we marveled again at our shrinking world in terms of instant communication.
This morning I raced over to catch a bit of some typhoon swell just brushing the north east tip of the island before scurrying up to Japan (the typhoon, not me!), and managed to get some good solid swell in extremely uncrowded conditions (make that just 1: me) I just love it when the waves build and the crowds thin over here…it makes a pleasant change from the usual two foot and “walk on water” clogging crowds we usually experience. I went to Pointies first, but decided not to risk the wrath of the assembled fledgling Taipei lifeguard brigade. They were equipped with life jackets and headgear and seemed very intent on saving themselves and playing with their equipment, so instead of enduring a spirited blast of various whistles ordering me out of the “dangerous” waters, I chose instead to travel 5 minutes down the road to the deserted Rocket.

After a good, but exhausting surf, I was keen to get home to watch the NRL semi, but my plans were partly thwarted by a second group of overly officious officialdom. A couple of policeman stopped traffic at the Starbucks intersection at Yangminshan village for 17 minutes! I was a touch miffed by the time they eventually let us through! Well, Cassy is nearly off to camp as I said, so I’ll have the onerous responsibility of looking after the eating, pooing machine that is Virg’n Mary till Friday. I’m sure I’ll cope….(!) Photos today are a little quirky and on a mini transport theme. A dinosaur clad lad on a scooter caused quite a stir and lots of laughs, an older guy on a motorbike wears yellow Crocs and carries the shopping and an even older guy plies his trade on traditional bike and pointy hat! The next photo is of the super efficient Jinshan lifeguard brigade and the last one of the grade 3 teachers.

Wal and Shaun came round to watch the first semi of the NRL finals on Friday night while we waited for Coobsey to jet in from Hong Kong. Originally due in Tienmu at 7.30, he had missed his flight and now wasn’t expected until about 10. After the game we went down to the Green to wait for him and when he arrived the place was humming along quite nicely. It was an interesting experience for me as I am not drinking anything, because I’m taking some strong antibiotics. The volume rose, the crowd got sillier: it was really very entertaining! Coomba subsequently arrived and we had a great old chat for a few hours till I left him in Wal’s capable (?!) hands for the remainder of the evening.

On Saturday, we toyed with the idea of meeting with him for brunch with a group of others, but decided that we couldn’t make it. Instead, after our usual weekend brekky of toast, coffee, lazing around and reading the Herald clippings from Mum, we decided to venture downtown to a Turkish place we’d found out about. It was pretty hard to find, tucked into a one way lane off the main roads, but it was surely worth it. The food was excellent and we both wolfed down our choices. I had Iranian chicken with salad and Cass had hummus with tahini, falafel and pida. Wow!! This place was fantastic and well worth the hike down. We even figured out after the event that there is an MRT station fairly near, so next time, on the train we go.

Today we decided to head over to the east coast but left our run a little late and the usual good run was marred by a stack of Sunday Freeway Drivers. This Taiwanese phenomenon appears after 10am on any given Sunday and proceeds to block all lanes of an otherwise excellent elevated road and tunnel system. In fact we crawled through 20km of tunnels averaging about 40 km/h! When we were spat out at Toucheng, we took about 15 minutes to go a couple of kilometers to the Wushi Harbour Wall where we planned to spend a few hours surfing, swimming and eating our picnic lunch that Cassy had made. There was some massive festival going on at Wushi Harbour, with great battalions of tour buses making an impenetrable wall up along the carpark. When we eventually spied the surf, we could not believe our eyes. Check pointyhat here for some amazing photos and a video. Looks like our previously underutilized surf haven is now well and truly on the Taipei trendies map. It is just an hours drive from Taipei central now as opposed to about an hour and a half to Jinshan, so I suppose it had to happen.

Anyway, we gave that the flick and went to the nearby “Taj Mahal” where the crowd was not much better. I got a few little waves, but had more success body bashing and we both enjoyed a swim even though the water was pretty warm. Cass sheltered under our brand new umbrella which lasted about 10 minutes before shredding itself in a light zephyr…oh well, can’t expect great things for $4! As we both huddled under the tiny shade footprint we thought we’d be better off saving our lunch for further along the coast. We stopped at a tidal pool area with some walking trails and lots of stalls selling all types of seafood (remember Chris and Val?). As we were just finishing our sandwiches perched on a rather rustic, Flintstonesesque rock outdoor setting, a skinny little waif of a cat came and cried for some food. On the way back we bought what we thought was just one fish to give the cat, but it turned out to be one plateful! The cat was nowhere to be seen, but we dropped off a brace of fat little fish for him to sniff out later.

We’ve had an absolute feast of football this weekend, with every semi of both NRL and AFL being shown on the Australia Network, so we’ve loved every minute. This is set to continue right up till the grand finals, so the weekends in September look pretty full already! Photos today include two at Sababa, one of the robust umbrella (!), a butterfly that Cassy took multiple photos of outside the Toucheng 7/11 and Chiang Kai Chek Concert Hall undergoing major restoration work with an amazing giant picture of it on the outside to hide the scaffolds!

It’s still stinking hot here but we had a touch of relief with a rollicking thunderstorm that came and went in a wild melee before leaving an even greater humidity and stillness. It’s a damp, enervating slough we’re in and we’re wondering when it will end: damn this global warming! Even though our weekend has been uncomfortable weather wise, we’ve managed to assuage the feeling a little with equal doses of culture and cross cultural wonderment, refreshing drinks and comfortingly predictable weekend activities.

We were invited to an art opening on Friday night at a very flash art gallery in Neihu. As the school’s board was throwing a party for the teachers at the American Club later that evening, a bus was arranged to whisk us from school to the gallery then straight onto the party afterwards. It was certainly one of the flashest art openings we’ve been to and one with a twist. The artist was none other than one of our Year 6 students! On these pages a while back I described a fascinating dinner that we attended, hosted by some extremely rich people. These same people have two sons, one of whom I’ve taught and had a fair bit to do with over the years here. Andre has a real and rare artistic talent and his family’s position meant that he was able to enhance his skills with teachers and resources at his disposal. The works were a touch naive, but bold in their use of colour and fresh in style, certainly not conventional or copied. We were really impressed with the scope of the works, Andre painting massive canvases dripping with oils, each subject matter treated just a little differently. It was quite an amazing experience. Cass enjoyed some exquisite champagne from the Koo’s private chateau and vineyard in France and of course the hors d’oeuvres were excellent and served by a bevy of eager attendants. We both really admire this family: they are so lovely and unassuming, and the kids are quite delightful, I imagine a task difficult to achieve when such wealth is available.

Onwards to the board party where a slightly lesser (!) quality of food and drink was available, but a very pleasant night was had by all. The various faculty bands got a chance to impress their captive audience, people drank and chatted and caught up around the pool. Later on in the evening, the tradition of dunking some of the administrators continued, the new boss proving she’s a pretty good sport by “allowing” herself to hit the drink! A good crowd of us went back to the green bar for a few more and so subsequently when Mum rang on Saturday morning, I was still dead to the world, but luckily Cass heard the phone and had a bit of a chat.

The surf has been flat for weeks, so once again that trip was not an option, so we had a pretty quiet day escaping the heat before venturing out to an early dinner at Café Grazie, just over the bridge in Shilin. It’s a great meal there and really good value meaning that the place is always packed solid. Our early start meant we were just able to sneak in and when we left our seat, they were ushering people into our seats before we had even paid the bill. Cassy missed out on her favourite gorgonzola and spinach pizza as they had run out of the ingredients, but managed to find some pretty good substitutes.

Today, we enjoyed getting stuck back into some clippings from the Herald that we received from Mum late last week and finally felt like we back “to normal”. It always takes us a while to fully assimilate back in: it’s an awkward time for us on either end of our big trip, both back in Australia and back here. We went and saw “The Invasion” with Nicole Kidman, but both were inclined to give it a B+ only. Nicole probably pulled it up from a C+ actually as she was really quite mesmerizing, but the plot (based on “The Bodysnatchers”) was fairly predictable. Still, it was a nice diversion for us and a good outing, made even better for Cassy when she made a purchase of, what else, a pair of shoes, on the way out!

Cass and I are both walking to and from school; even in this heat and I’ve enjoyed the experience. I’d got really slack last year and had been going on the scooter, but I still find I can do a bit of boxing and weights in the afternoon as well as do the walk home without getting too exhausted. Cassy has had a few mishaps recently and has been a bit of the walking wounded after taking a spill on her brand new patent leather shoes down the drive, where they were like ice skates and cutting her foot and hurting her knee. She’s a very good healer though and seems to be getting better very quickly. (I’m required to report that the shoes are fine despite a small scrape on the toe of one!)
Photos today are of the art exhibition, the board party and the green bar.

An intense summer Taipei heat topping 37 degrees on the “real feel” thermometer has been sapping at our energy this week. Most of the time locked away in the air con at school or at home, it’s certainly a shock to venture out in the middle of the day just as we did today. We had plans to visit the fabric market in the old western district of the downtown and got there on faithful “Blackie” the scooter quite efficiently but nearly every stall and the main market itself was closed. Sunday is obviously not the best day for this area, although we did arrive at the ungodly hour of “a.m.” which seems to be a time of the day purely reserved for sleeping and having a lazy breakfast here in Taipei, which normally suits us just fine!. The area is very un Taipei as it has lots of older style Japanese built buildings and higgledy piggledy streets and houses all over the place.

As we were more than 2/3 of the way there we thought we’d zip over to just south east of central Taipei to Yong Kang street, a cosmopolitan pretty hip little area with lots of restaurants and quirky shops and people. It’s almost in the shadow of the 101, yet maintains a very different feel: a street unofficially given over to pedestrian traffic, old one storey shops and plenty little parks and trees. We were tempted by Ice Monster for a snacky kind of lunch as were boiling in the heat and it is a very popular and well known way to cool down. The shaved ice phenomena is huge here as evidenced by a queue forming, so we ventured a bit further down the street to “Yogurt Me”. Wow! This was super delicious….a good size swirl of vanilla yogurt surrounded by three fruits of your choice and topped with a sprinkle of fruit loops….you can see from the photos that we’re new fans! After lunch, Cassy even had her eyes tested with a snazzy machine that she looked in for a few seconds and which then spat out a reading of each eye’s weakness. Much to the glasses shop guy’s amusement, her right eye was perfect (yes perfect!) and her left had only the mildest weakness imaginable…I think she was just looking for an excuse to get some of these impossibly jazzy Japanese designer glasses they’re selling down here. Scootered back home and we caught some footy before I’ve retired to the study to write this blog.

Backtracking to yesterday, we decided to book some tickets to the movies before heading out to dinner. We went to see “Disturbia” without any great expectations at all, yet were pleasantly surprised as it turned out to be a fine character driven movie with the serial killer theme almost an afterthought. We thought we’d give the tequila Sunrise outlet here in Tienmu another go after a mixed effort last time we visited but found it shut and looking sadly abandoned: obviously more people than us were disappointed with it. Oh well, another bites the dust…as I’ve pointed out before on these pages, we always dread to find which restaurants have not survived the summer when we return in August. Wendel’s was an excellent alternative and we just luxuriated in the courtyard where misting jets went off every 30 seconds or so completely changing the temperature and the comfort. We had a beautiful meal and wine and toasted the fact that this restaurant is not going anywhere, anytime soon!

I had a few drinks with my team on Friday at Chili’s after we’d taken the third graders to the park for the afternoon in the baking heat of Friday: I think we all enjoyed the beers a lot! Hopefully I’ll get a copy of the photo next week and post it here. Photos today include Cassy enjoying the cool mist at Wendels last night, both of us having some Yogurt Me and we also sampled some of this delicious juice. The line up at Ice Monster and an old building façade in the old western section of the city.

Hunkered inside, winds of 200km lashing our windows, debris flying through the streets and flash local flooding. Somehow we’ve managed to bookend our holiday with the exact same scenario: the afternoon we arrived home was the cyclonic “Pasha” storm in Newcastle and Super Typhoon Sepat has had us locked inside on our first weekend back in Taipei.

We were very lucky not to experience the great hardship that so many people did back home, but the first day was certainly a day we’ll never forget. Exhausted after our travel home and another hectic end to a school year, it was very hard to cope with torrents pouring down our drive, our precious things kept in storage for 6 years just about all ruined by inundation, and serious water entry into our unit. Cass and I just had to bite the bullet and clean up for about a week as our visitors were arriving after that. It was quite draining physically and emotionally as we threw all our treasures into a skip at the top of the drive, yet it was a catalyst for a number of decisions which we’re very happy about.

We picked up Ross and Ains from Sydney and brought them back to an unseasonably miserable Newcastle, the buzz of the Pasha trying hard to counteract the dreary weather. Over the next week or so we delighted in seeing our friends again, experienced some big storm surf, Ross ran to the Pasha and back each day and we ate and drank a lot! We had a magnificent night out with Mum, partaking of fine food and wine then we even managed to get out on Chris and Val’s boat after a snap decision one morning when the weather lifted for just one magnificent (and more typical!) winter’s day.

We also bit the bullet and had a minor renovation done. Even though relatively minor, the tradesman only being able to come on weekends meant it extended out for ages and we found ourselves locked to a home schedule to let them in, or be there when they were due to come. It’s turned out fantastically, our bedroom now extended, not by much, but enough to open the room up and give it a whole new feel. The other addition is a massive semi-walk in linen cupboard. We sacrificed our mini “media alcove” to achieve these extras and we both think it is a much better use of the space. Soon, we’re also replacing the louvres with fixed panes and double hung windows as well. The only thing left will be new carpet and that’s waiting till next June, when hopefully, all the problems on the back wall have been fixed.

Cass caught up with her “girls” a few times during the break and we went out to dinner with the Uni boys and partners and had a boy’s night out as well a week later. We had a delicious dinner at Wal and Thurza’s and dined with Thurza again with other friends and saw her a lot this trip which was really great. Cass was disappointed not to catch up with Ildi but our renos were just too awkward. AJ dropped in for a great catch up chat and he also made the trip from Sydney for the boys’ night. We had the pleasure of attending Robert and Erin’s combined 40th birthday parties and what a great time we had catching up with all the relatives from the extended family : I’m always just so impressed with the erudition on show at these gatherings! We didn’t have our own party this year, but still managed to catch up with lots of people even though we were preoccupied with all sorts of other distractions as previously mentioned. We didn’t see as much as we’d like of the family this year, but really did find this holiday to be a strange one: whenever there seemed a chance, there was another job to do or another tradesman’s appointment to keep. We had a lovely dinner at Jen and Vince’s and got our rare chance to see all the kids and had a day out for Mum’s birthday where all the clan gathered. We got to see Helen and family a few times and Sue and little Duncan came round to see us and we saw them.

Taiwan is still enticing us with her various charms, which we’re rather impressed with, considering we’re beginning our 7th year here. Even though it always feels a little awkward getting back and adjusting to our totally different life over here (apart from being in Asia, we actually have to work!) our apartment feels comfortable, Virg’n Mary seem especially glad we’re back and no doubt, I’ll continue to find something to babble on about on these pages for the foreseeable future.

Photos: a dirt(!) road in the back of beyond on our severely truncated bike trip, 3 happy souls on the boat, Ains getting fitted out for her bike ride, Cassy at our seafood feast including champers(thanks R&A!), surfer boys, the Pasha and the boys. The most poignant for us is the shot of the shed with the sodden boxes of ruined things.