HHmmmmmm! Australians just don’t lose rugby league world cups do they?? We watched in amazement as the Australians imploded in the world cup final Saturday afternoon Taipei time and the Kiwis had a well deserved victory. We took some solace the next day when we watched the Aussies mop up the New Zealand tail to take a win in the 1st cricket tests, but this was actually the natural order of things. I’ll say again, Aussie rugby league teams just don’t lose world cups (at least not since 1975 anyway!). This was a rather hard to swallow entrée to a great night out we had at Wendel’s backerie on Saturday night. We were late for our reservation as the nail biting league game went on, but we eventually made it down to a dining room full of atmosphere, a buzz of conversation, and eclectic group of citizenry enjoying their big Saturday dinner and we enjoyed soaking up all the sights and sounds.

Our perfectly cooked large steaks arrived with exquisite sides of baked onion and a subtly flavoured potato stack, along with mushrooms stuffed with a julienned concoction of vegetables. We each had a generous glass of Shiraz and enjoyed some home made German bread along the way. As Thanksgiving is fast approaching, their turkey feasts were being advertised widely. A table of about 20 Germans of all ages, young and old had the pleasure of watching the biggest turkey we had ever seen being carved at their table. This caused a great stir amongst the local contingent, many of whom recorded the whole show on video phones! I suppose this is still a fairly exotic event for the Taiwanese, as even though very cosmopolitan in their food choices, the whole Thanksgiving thing tends to be left to certain establishments well known for catering to American tastes. We left via the adjoining cake shop and each had a plum custard slice to take away, although its enormous proportions allowed us to keep ½ aside for dessert tonight as well!

This morning we had the strange sensation of watching a Brisbane test over breakfast (we’re 3 hours behind), then preceded to do our usual of reading Herald clippings of great interest (thanks Mum, but what is going on in Newcastle and that omnipresent debate about cutting the rail line?: make a decision please!!) before making a late decision to get out to the coast. It was just a magnificent day weather wise today: a perfect temperature, clear blue skies and sun of a lesser than laser like intensity for once. A mild cooling breeze finalized the package, and we had a great drive through the mountains to the coast. I must add that we had one of those “only in Taiwan” moments on the way. We were short of petrol and needed to fill up before we ventured over the mountain so we backtracked a way to get to the station I usually just get scooter petrol from. After we filled up, the guy asked if we wanted anything. I asked for water (they have a quaint custom of giving you a couple of bottles of water or a pack of tissues if you fill the tank) Anyway, he asked that I open the boot and placed a box of 18 bottles in there! The very fact that driveway service is the norm here and not the exception, then the gifts, then the guy who stops the traffic for you on your way out is quite wonderful.

The surf was small but a good quality and the crowd was quite small for once (especially on the top coast) so as I enjoyed the surf, Cass enjoyed taking in the spectacular scenery from the top of the cliff. To the south west the Candle Islands rise from the ocean catching beautiful bands of light as the afternoon wears on and to the north east, the cliffs of Little Yeliou drop off into the water allowing the waves to surge and splash plumes of white water into the air at intervals. It’s a very calming spot and Cassy’s choice of spot to sit if I am out in the surf.

We were both shocked and saddened to hear the news that my good friend Wayne’s father had died suddenly on Friday. He was an eccentric and hugely likeable character and was certainly always larger than life. I had the opportunity to speak with Wayne on the phone Friday, from whom I heard all the details. Very sad news for the family and friends: We’ve had quite enough of this kind of news lately…

Tuesday lunchtime and still feeling extremely wishy washy….what happened on this long weekend? Plenty! Wal and I buzzed off from school right on the bell and Truckie whisked us off to get our evening flight to Singapore on Thursday. The flight was pretty pain free and I watched a few videos on my iPod, Wal slept, all good. Josh was a champion and was there to greet us in his little car, and then when we got to his apartment we managed to stay up for a couple of hours chatting, having the first of many beers for the trip!

On Friday, off to eat roti Pradas for breakfast at a local haunt, cup of coffee, then off to the golf, The Singapore Open. I’m no great fan of golf: my personal attempts have been rather lame and I haven’t felt the need to spectate in the past, but I have to admit, this was a pretty awesome experience. Mickelson, Els and Scott to name just a few were very impressive. World class sportsmen doing their thing, right up close is an incredible experience. As it was a working day, the crowds at the golf were way down, enabling us to get up close and personal. Mid afternoon we retired back to the football sized pool and got into some very competitive super velocity tennis ball throwing!

Friday night we arranged to go over the other side of town to Chad’s place. Cathy and kids were there, Cathy was all dolled up ready to go out to a ball and we had a few beers with Chad and caught up with all the happenings. They have a great set-up there, a beautiful big plush apartment with huge pool and other amenities. Chad arranged to meet us at the races later, so we raced off to make sure we met up with the rest of the group. Off to Kranji Race Club for Singapore’s famous night races, we opted for the air-conditioned upper deck of the grandstand and split our betting duties up accordingly. I got a winner first up paying $8 for a win (we had $20 on it) so that set us up for a great start. After a lot of winning and losing, we ended up with a $50 profit for the night, probably about even when you take into account our food and beverage bill…wonderful result. Wal and I met a further bevy of Josh’s Singapore mates and we also met up with Morgs, a mate of Wal’s from Melbourne who is currently working in Bangkok and flew over to enjoy the festivities. After the last race we went back to one of Chad’s favorite bars and enjoyed a big Erdinger that he bought at god knows what cost, then bid him good night. Kristin, Josh’s fiancée, came to pick us up, and we travelled back in the early morning through Singapore’s magnificently tidy and clean suburbs and streets.

Saturday, after sumptuous coffee shop brekky, it was back to the golf. One of Josh’s friends had sourced some passes, so 14 of us got in for free instead of paying the $50 entry! Sun not yet over the yardarm, we had the first of what would turn out to be many beers that day and night. The crowd was up around the 14,000 mark today so we didn’t get nearly as close to the famous players, with a few very funny exceptions! Josh had a few challenges to perform, including singing the Australian national anthem at one hole, holding up a purloined quiet sign at another and commandeering a golf cart at yet another. He accomplished all set tasks with a minimum of fuss: quite some feat in Singapore’s strictly regulated society, as at some points I was almost certain we would be arrested at worst, escorted from the course at least. In full caddie’s kit he escorted one of the world’s leading players, Simon Dyson, to the toilet, managing to get him past the queue, and held up a “shut up” sign behind Ernie Els as he took a shot! Our group managed to cheer on a succession of Aussie pros as they walked off down various fairways and we had a ball.

We went straight from the golf to Harry’s bar down at Boat Quay. Here the festivities continued and more challenges for the “back nine” were accepted and completed, including convincing complete strangers that he was a “ladyboy” and the obligatory singing with the band. This fun went on and on for many hours and Wal and I enjoyed getting to know many of Josh’s mates. One of the most interesting characters was a short red-headed guy known as the “ginger ninja”: what a hoot he turned out to be later on a pole at a pole dancing bar!
Eventually a call for taxis, and no buck’s night would be complete without at least a bit of shady action at a strip bar or something similar. Orchard Towers, colloquially known as the “four floors of whores”(!) fitted the bill for the organizers: Four floors of lots of different bars and dance clubs in one building, very famous for the proliferation of afore mentioned “ladyboys”. Chad was leading the way, and managed to get us in to all manner of exclusive entry and lived up to his “King of Singapore” reputation by not only getting us in, but also having the outrageous cover charges waived at most places….nice work Big Chad!! We had an absolute ball, and Josh continued to perform challenges and enjoy his night. As people slowly drifted away, we found ourselves a smallish group again ready for sleep, so hailed a cab and made it back to Josh’s place.
There were way too many moments to record here, but suffice to say that Wal and I got limited sleep, had copious amounts of alcohol and talked and socialized non-stop for three days and nights! This was an extremely enjoyable, but also extremely enervating long weekend and I only feel vaguely recovered today. Oh, and P.S. Man, that Singapore is expensive!! Photos are a selection of golf, races, bars etc!

Our walk to and from work each day is always a nice time of the day and it’s interesting what you see and hear along the way. It takes us about 15 minutes to get there at a good clip, and about 20 or more if we amble along. From Tai Chi in the park, scooters on the footpath (!) and the “enchanted forest” on the Chung North footpath, with beautiful shade trees adorned with their own decorations, kind of a living tinsel of dangling tendrils giving it an other worldly feel. One of the sights we see many mornings is a set of twin girls walking to the local primary school. We have seen them walking for many, many years now, and they are getting quite big (maybe 3rd or 4th grade). They have always been such a cute sight and we can gauge their mood with the world, but more particularly themselves very easily. The best barometer is their proximity to one another. When everything is right in the world they are walking along holding hands, joking and giggling, laughing and talking. But on occasions, there is a falling out and they walk along with terribly glum expressions about 50 metres apart!! Even though they seem very upset with one another, they still keep each other in sight: it really is “so cute”! I managed to snap a shot of them in the distance which I zoomed in on …this was a good day! Cassy modeled for the shot in the foreground so I didn’t look like some weird foreign creep taking photos of school kids!

We’ve had an extremely relaxing weekend: or should that read, “extremely lazy”! On Saturday, we did venture out before the rain set in. Dan had texted me a surf report which basically said, “Stay in bed” which I took literally for an hour or two. Eventually we roused ourselves and had a decadently late breakfast at the flash French restaurant on Chung Cheng Rd, “Le Jardin”. We both really enjoyed the fine fare, including exquisitely cooked omelets, eggs, toast with home made jams, fresh juices and coffee etc etc. We then wandered over to the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi to see the latest James Bond installment. Although jam packed with all the usuals, I think we were both slightly disappointed as it didn’t quite live up to the last one, which we thought was probably the best ever. Daniel Craig still does a fantastic job however: tough as well as suave, but he can still deliver a few funny one-liners!

The rain started to seep down from mid Saturday onwards and has not let up since. Today we spent the afternoon watching the cricket while every few overs, Cassy would get up and add some extra ingredient to a bubbling pot of chicken soup. She is preparing for next Friday when her book club group is due for their monthly meeting, Cassy hosting this one. Speaking of next Friday, I’ll be at the races in Singapore Friday night!! Wal and I are catching a flight on Thursday after school and going to Singapore for a long weekend. We’ve got stacks of stuff lined up to do, but we are going really to attend Josh’s buck’s night on Saturday. Some of his mates down there have got it all organized, I just hope we’ll make it back on the plane to Taipei on Sunday afternoon….more on this next week (and I guarantee you the blog will be late: keep an eye out on Monday or Tuesday I’d suggest!)
Photos: Studying some Chinese, one of the golf group from last week, Cass being my model on the way to school with the twins in the background, and a zoomed in shot of the twins.

A peculiarity that pervades the Asian landscape, be it, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Thailand or others, is the massive steel frames and towers covered in netting that dot the areas around big population centres. They are a hundred metres high and hundreds of metres long and are of course that antidote to golf players starved of cheap and accessible courses, the golf driving range. Even though the outer areas of Taipei County do indeed boast some picturesque top class courses, they are very expensive compared to Australia and do entail a longer drive than is usual back home. I am not a golfer and have only ever fudged my way round a course three times in my life (including the infamous Cypress Lakes opening when I managed to get myself on the nightly news hacking my way out of a gully!), so have not entertained the thought of using one of these huge skeletal frames, even though I’ve been quite fascinated by the look of them from afar, a bit like a gigantic insect or a creature from “War of the Worlds” rising from the ground.

Suffice to say, we tried some different entertainment on Friday afternoon and I loved every minute! We duly got our huge number of golf balls and proceeded to swat merrily away at them for a few hours before retiring for some refreshments. I used Wal as my tutor and he seemed to give me very good advice as every now and then I’d crack a beauty in the sweet spot and felt well satisfied. Lewy, Wal and Gurecki were all very experienced and I made sure I watched what they did and used their advice. In the end, even though my long game was wayward (to say the least!), I ended up teaming with Lewy against Wal and Gurecki and we won a little chipping game twice in a row: I was pretty satisfied.

Cass went into a bit of a wiping frenzy yesterday and managed to wipe down and clean the big main windows and sliding doors at the front as well as the ceiling and walls of the kitchen. To her great surprise, she managed to find microscopic pieces of potato still all over certain sections of the walls and ceiling! You may remember a microwaved bowl of potatoes exploded in her face a few months ago necessitating a rush to the doctor and some first aid burns treatment. We ended up having a very low key Saturday, apart from Cassy’s exertions, and watched the cricket over the internet, the Wallabies and the All Blacks on TV, and ended up getting Alleycats pizzas and a Greek salad for tea…yum!

Today started off in a similarly relaxed fashion with a dozy morning eating breakfast, reading lots of Herald clippings that Mum sent, patting and playing with the girls and fiddling on the computer. Mid-morning, however, we decided to set off on a stairs mission. I have been regularly doing the 1000 steps during the week (at least 4 times) slowly whittling down my time. I have to take two stairs at a time and semi-jog now to improve my times, but that’s a good thing. Cass and I decided we’d do a slower, but much longer version. Armed with a bottle of water each (as it turned out we could have done with a second one) we braved the 31 degree heat up to the foot of the stairs. Half way up we took a dogleg to the right and met up with another set of stairs. These are the ones I took a month or so back that led up to the very top of the Chinese Cultural College. Even though they are far less crowded (Sunday is not a good d ay to go!!), there is a reason: they are much steeper and more intense and also go a lot way further. Cass did a great job and we were huffing, puffing and sweating buckets by the time we got to the top. Along the way we saw dozens of scared little geckos and lizards rush across our path, including one little mini “dinosaur”! There were lizards with electric blue tails darting here and there and dainty skeletons of dead leaves scattered around. It was really quite scenic, especially every now and then when we’d burst from the forest canopy and get a glimpse of the seething city far, far below: quite surreal. We’ve been a bit pooped since we got back and the option of watching a little cricket and having a light “resting my eyes” type snooze definitely appealed! Photos: on the steps and track, golf driving and Halloween monsters at school on Friday.

Cassy finished her parent conferences on Friday and set a new record – 47 interviews (only one no-show). What was especially demanding was that she saw 32 lots on Thursday – was a bit of a veggie on Friday… All pretty good but the usual sprinkling of complete nuts: the kid is getting an A but they ask, “What can he/she do to improve?” or (her other favourite) a completely brain-dead kid is getting a B by dint of sheer hard slog, and they aren’t happy with that!!!! She felt like saying to them: “Do the words gene and pool mean anything to you????”
No grading for Cassy this weekend so she was really looking forward to a relaxing time. Friday evening began with her treat to watch the French channel (tv5): “Questions pour un champion” game show; and later, 2 episodes of “Les Bleus’ (a cop show about a group of rookie cops – very soapie but beautiful French and perfect fodder for a Friday night she reckons.) I went and had a few ales with the usual suspects, Sean dropped in as well but couldn’t stay long as he was hosting Katie’s parents who are here for a new baby visitation.

After a good sleep in on Saturday, we tripped off to the beach. It was great just walking across the road to the car (but that convenience came back to bite us on Sunday) and we headed off on a particularly beautiful morning. As we wound our way up the Yangminshan mountain road, the air was clear, sun shone and a dusting of cloud just drifted across the top of the peaks. Sometimes this indicates foul weather on the other side, but Wuthering Heights scenes quickly cleared up as we dropped down the mountain on the other side. We met up with Dan and family at Jinshan and I had an unreal surf! My new board is still all dinged up and unfixed (slack me!), but the newish fish worked really well on some strong 3-4 foot groundswell. Dan and I each got some real beauties and we managed to wear ourselves out over a couple of hours of quite solid wave action. Cass enjoyed chatting to Nicky on the shoreline and watching their two little kids cavorting around. They have a very relaxed and unusual parenting style which we’ve always found really refreshing: the kids get a few bumps and bruises, but they learn by experience and are very robust now, even though they’re still quite young. After a hearty 7-11 meal of dumplings for me (I think I really am turning a little Chinese) and a salmon “onigiri” for Cass (is she turning Japanese?!) we got back to Tienmu, found a park on the river road and got home. Later on Saturday evening, we had a pleasant meal at the Royal Host (New Zealand steak!) and had a wander down to the Eslite to look for an Italian phrasebook for Cass to study before Christmas. They didn’t have much, so we resolved to head downtown on Sunday.

Another sleep in (that surfing really tires you out!) and then I headed off up the stairs in some stifling heat. It was a massive effort to keep up my pretty sharp pace today and I was totally soaked and dripping with sweat by the time I got back. Showered and ready, we headed off to the car to drive downtown, thinking we’d increase our carbon footprint a touch today and abandon the MRT for the car. The battery was dead flat!! Saturday’s winding mountain road dictates that lights are on, but I’d forgotten to turn them off. The worst part about this is how I’ll jump start the car: plenty of car folk can help, but they’ll block a one way road, and the leads might not reach if we park side –by-side…..have to figure that out tomorrow.

The trip downtown was very successful. The MRT was relatively calm for a Sunday, the crush bearable and Taipei 101 is always exciting. Having just lost its mantle as the world’s tallest building to some gross Dubai monstrosity; it is still very slick and impressive. We had Turkish at Doner Kebab for lunch then scoured Page One bookshop for our Italy stuff. We eventually struggled out weighed down with guides for Rome, Florence and Venice as well as a cute little phrasebook. No excuses now! Home to watch the Aussies and Kiwis in the World Cup via streaming internet beamed onto the TV and audio and we feel we’ve had an exceptionally full (and mildly exhausting!) weekend. Photos: Cass with store window bizarre Christmas reindeer! Strange wine signs, Cassy sneaking in and out of Cartier at 101)!!, books in Page One, me holding a menu at the Royal Host, and Cassy avoiding a photo at same venue!

It was with an extremely keen sense of trepidation that I edged the super powerful brand new Triumph from the Grand Palace’s carpark into the usual stream of scooters, buses and cars. Weaving slowly past the crowd then heading up the hill away from them, I relaxed into the bike’s seat a little more. My feet were on the pegs set back from the engine on an angle, my arms set down on the handle bars with pressure. It was not uncomfortable, but immediately brought back long forgotten feelings of being wrapped into the cocoon of the Ducati’s frame all those years ago. Hearing the engine purr as I teased the clutch and throttle into a second gear change, I jigged back in the seat, gripped the ergonomically designed tank between my legs and gave a little twitch to the accelerator. The Harley’s low down guttural torque is one thing: a full on bucking bronco that nearly rips arms out of sockets is another: I was off up the hill into Yangminshan with a hot trail of zinging engine screams behind me, hooting to myself wildly and unable to wipe a spreading grin from my face. So this is what it’s like to ride a proper motorbike in Taiwan!

Obviously the highlight of the week/weekend for me was the ride on Greg’s new Triumph. He has been agonizing over this possible purchase for ages, but finally bit the bullet after months of research. The bike is absolutely outstanding in every way, but the realization that he firstly has not arranged any insurance, and secondly, I sensed he was going to ask me if I wanted to take it for a spin, was a little shocking! He knows I can ride a big bike of course, and I had spent many months discussing pros and cons with him and getting lots of vicarious pleasure from the whole adventure. We arranged to meet up out at the Grand Palace, and he initially took me for a white knuckle ride up the hill as a pillion. I got a first hint of its enormous power and acceleration when I nearly got flipped off the back when he gave it a bit of juice half way up! Back down to the carpark, I was very hesitant to accept, but agreed to take it for a little spin in the carpark: that was it of course, so I had to get up the hill after that!

We, yes we, went up the steps and along the monkey trail today, right to the end. I am still recovering from my sickness, so was keen to do my first bit of exercise for over a week, and Cass wanted to come along and try the steps. Both days of the weekend have been absolutely stunning weather wise, almost without fault. Full sun but with a touch of breeze, late 20s in temperature and not too humid, it was a great match today for a walk in the mountains. Cass had forgotten the steepness and unrelenting length of the steps, but she handled it very well and after we’d got our breath back at the top of the steps, we really enjoyed strolling the entire length of the trail. Eventually we passed the outdoor chicken restaurant of the free range chickens wandering around oblivious to their fate, but this time, a couple of piglets looked like they might have been starting their “fattening up” journey as well! We stopped by and checked out a beautiful example of Japanese brick housing from the colonial rule days, and we checked out a few different things on the way back down. I was pleased that she came along today, so now she can picture where I go when I set off often through the week. Cass is quite keen to go up again every now and then on the weekend, so we’ll gradually warm up to a few bigger and different routes both up and back down.

Cassy was stoked to get all her memoirs graded this past week: its quite a gargantuan undertaking, one which I try to change every year as it just seems to huge, but it always remains the same! She has parent conferences coming up at the end of the week, a time of the year neither of us particularly enjoys. I had mine on Thursday and Friday and they all went quite well, after which we headed off the Qiyan WooSo bar for a few beers. This turned into quite a party as not only Clarky turned up from Singapore (he was here watching his daughter play in a tournament) with Lewy, but Johnsy showed up fresh from his triumphs as a finisher (top 300) at the recent Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon World Championships. I had a good chat to him and got to secretly re-live some glory days from 11 years ago when I finished the Ironman in Australia. His achievement was really quite amazing: apart from qualifying for Hawaii and finishing way up in the field, he also has dealt with some very serious heart problems….amazing!
Photos: lots of bike stuff, lots of steps stuff, Japanese house and two little pigs.

We've just finished our "ten ten" break, an extended weekend, and didn't we need it! It has been a weekend of two parts, one where we relaxed, went on a few adventures and had fun, and the second half one of wallowing in that peculiar self misery that sickness brings!

We lazed around and luxuriated in our day off on Thursday to a large extent and I eventually went down to the bank to send some money home as the exchange rate was just spectacular. (It got better, but I didn't think it possibly could). After a walk there and back, I decided that I'd done enough exercise for the morning and settled in to watch the Australians play India in the first test. Cass and I enjoyed the day's play, but thought we had better arrest our sloth and made plans to catch the MRT downtown. The Taipei main subway station is an annex of the Taipei Main Station and the main station was an amazing hive of activity on Thursday night. A crazy long line of patient inter-city commuters were lined up for the new High Speed Rail which jettisons people down the west coast and into the arms of family before they have time to say, "Ten ten". We weaved through this throng and eventually found the new Breeze Centre on the second floor of the huge station. It goes right around the whole square, but fortuitously, we landed smack bang in front of Sababa, which was where we wanted to go. A Turkish/pida cafe that we have eaten at many times before in other locations, was the drawcard. It is a food court, but the most incredible one I have seen. Clean and new and slick, it was well patronised and was buzzing with people on their way here and there. We ate, walked around a bit, visited all manner of shops then hopped on the MRT home again!

Friday was beach day, and we had vague notions of joining up with Tobes and Gary at Fulong. In the end, we made the fateful decision to head to the Rocket. I had read an article some time back in the local English language newspaper about the high levels of bacteria present at certain beach breaks, especially during heavy rains, and especially near a river outlet. Guess what? There was heavy rain, lots of rubbish on the beach and a steady flow of water pouring out into the ocean from the hills. Did I remember? No! The surf was pretty good, but Cass didn't have much fun in the rain (we didn't know: it was bright, sunny and not a cloud in the sky in Tienmu when we left and when we returned!). After returning home, within hours, I had a cough and a sore throat developing.

It's turned into a very angry beast and I'm absolutely weaker than water. Cass has had to put up with my pathetic patient routine for a couple of days and I've done little else than lie on the lounge and have lots of snoozes. I went out for a walk around the park this afternoon with Cass, told her I had to go back, then slept , exhausted for two hours!

Saturday and Sunday have been indoor moping around days: lots of cricket, DVDs and sleeping. At least Cass has been able to get a good slab of grading done while I've been down for the count. (I'm sure she was thrilled with that).

Photos: me holding Virg up for the camera before a steps walk, shots of the gleaming food court at Taipei main, a vegetarian restaurant that doesn't quite get it(!) and a shot showing me surfing in the background and a disease filled waterway sluicing its way through rubbish in the foreground!

Well, it’s anathema for either one of us to cheer manly in any game, least of all a grand final, but when the Melbourne Storm was the alternative, we cheered the Sea eagles home to a most famous “Eagle rock”! What a game. We were all anticipating a close game after all Melbourne’s well documented dramas with the judiciary and offialdom over the past fortnight and Manly’s slow and methodical power end to the season but… who could possibly imagine that Manly would obliterate that oft quoted fanciful score line of 38-0 to East over St. George in 1975? I for one, had no idea it would happen, and as Wayne would know, I’ve often quoted the 38-0 mantra for his edification as the Eastern Suburbs of 1975 were my team of choice before the Knights entered the comp in 1988.

We had a hard core crew around here today, one which has been pretty solid fr the last 7 years. Wal, Gurecki, Lewy, O’Rourke were the mainstays of those years and they all joined Cass and me again. Brandon joined us this year, a great addition, as a sports fan and fairly new AL fan he has real passion for all Australian sports. The American accents and the occasional rather naïve observation were the norm, but who really cares? When you have Victorians and Tasmanians and a couple of North Americans in the crowd, it becomes the norm. Shaun turned up, which we all really appreciated to keep the tradition going, even though his second daughter, born just last week, has kept him fairly sleepless the majority of the time. He made it till half-time, had a can of Asahi, then beat a retreat back round the corner with eyes hanging down his cheeks and dark circles that would make Leo Sayer proud.

A few of us ventured round the corner to Uli’s German Bratwurst House to have a couple of micro brews to further analyse the game. This twilight game was just the ticket here as the Aussie 5pm start translated to 2 pm here with daylight savings kicking in the eastern states just a few hours before kickoff. It was just like the old days: a 2 pm start! Wonderful, all done and dusted by 7 pm, back home to write the blog. Just like the old days as I said, but I don’t think I’d be writing a “blog” in the old days. We’ve had an extremely social weekend, culminating in the hosting of the grand final today, but it all began on Friday night.

Cass had her post camp party on Friday with her middle school colleagues down at Alleycats. It was a bit strange, as they hadn’t actually attended the camp, postponed by typhoon Sinlaku a few weeks back. She managed to glean all sorts of gossip and information which kept me entertained most of the day on Saturday, with lots of, “Hey, guess what so and so said?” and, “You’ll never believe what so and so did…”. I was ensconced at Diamond Tony’s with the usual suspects and didn’t get anything! We were keen to have a quiet Friday and no one was really keen to go and have a drink, but one of our American colleagues bailed Wal up in the hall late in the day Friday to ask if he and Braggett and Gurecki were keen for a drink. We thought we’d better go as Grande is a great guy and rarely up for a get-together, but as it turned out, he didn’t show! We ended up discussing all the world’s problems as usual, but we won’t miss the opportunity to give it to him deluxe on Monday!

On Saturday night, Cass and I went down to KGB (Kiwi Gourmet Burger) to sample again their “Kiwi Mate”, a burger you could get on any corner back home, but rather special over here. A burger here does not have tomato, pineapple and especially beetroot as staples, so it’s a little slice of heaven. Saturday night is always a people watching experience on the heaving, packed Taipei mass rapid transit system, and didn’t surprise again. After a 30 minute trip down, eating and 30 minute trip back in the seething mass of humanity on a Taipei weekend night, we were a bit tired, but still committed to a party at Lewy’s place.

Robin and Chris worked here in Taipei for years before moving down to Singapore a couple of years ago. Chris was Cassy’s team leader (a role she now takes on) and Robin worked in the lower school with me. It was great to catch up with them amongst lots of our current colleagues and also DJ, who with wife Catherine had moved from curriculum director here to the volatile political hotbed of Myanmar to be superintendent of a leading Hong Kong school this year. Everyone loves DJ: the guy is charismatic, intelligent and principled. It was great to catch up with all concerned before we scootered home along the river road and flopped into bed ready for the big day today.

Taipei…still serving up an eclectic mix of entertainment and life experiences! Photos. Cass caught by an intrepid photographer on the MRT going downtown, the cats luxuriating on the shoebox yet again, and the boys taking in a historic and exciting NRL grand final. Also featured, a shot I took through a window on the way back from the train staion: 8pm Staurday night, poor little kiddies getting drilled within an inch of thier lives at the "Join Young Enrichment Academy"... maybe that's why Asian kids are acing all those world achievement tests!