I finally paid Clayton from Margaret River the money I owed him for some deck grip and a leg rope this weekend as I spied him amongst the crowd gathered for the inaugural Taipei surfing competition on Jinshan point this Sunday. He’d been recruited as a judge for the events, as “imports” such as us, were not permitted to enter the competition proper. Quite a crowd had gathered as we pulled up and the various rules and regulations were being broadcast. A few TV vans and sponsors’ tents were in evidence and the swell, while a bit messy, certainly had some size to test the skills. While we were tempted to stay and watch for a while we headed on to some less crowded waves (Taiwan speak for “just us”!) at the Rocket and Ross and I had mixed success, getting a few beauties and just as many shockers, as we’re both still getting used to our new boards. We’d been to every spot along the way that we’ve discovered so far: Pillbox, Baishawan, lookout, restaurants, Jinshan and Green Bay before settling on the Rocket.
This trip had been preceded by our attendance at the dawn service for Anzac day, held at school, but attended by a wide cross-section of the Aussie/Kiwi community here. As we’ve experienced before, it was a quality service, quite moving at times. These things seem to have even more resonance for us here, so far from home and things that we know best. It also amuses me at times that we’ve (Cass and I) gravitated to other Antipodeans for our social and friendship needs, even though we do have a smattering of friends from all sorts of other countries, the people we tend to stick with most are other Aussies or Kiwis, especially in terms of trust and friendship that means a lot. In saying that, we’ve certainly forged some very solid friendships with people like Chad and Cathy, so I suppose it’s the type of person rather than the nationality per see.
Cass has been hyped right up for her middle school play makeup duties, so she was busy most of the weekend. Thankfully, it’s over for another year and she did a great job with it from all reports. Now she knows the ropes, she’s tentatively selected it for her duty again next year, especially as she worked so well with the costume designer (another Aussie/ Brit!)
Apart from the fact that we’re coming home in June for 9 weeks, we’ve already booked our flights home for Christmas as well. We’ll be at our Merewether unit of course, but it looks like we’ll be joined by Chad and Cathy and Levi for some of the time and we’re flying to Tasmania for a few days around New Year to attend a colleague’s wedding, which should be a real blast. Shaun is the Aussie who we met in the lift at the job fair so many years ago now and he was looking as shell-shocked as we were at the time! We caught up with him a couple of times at the fair, but we didn’t realize he was at the same school till we ran into him in the lobby here on our first day.
Mum brought a whole Saturday Newcastle herald when she came, along with various other clippings etc. I’ve finally read the whole lot; having just given them over to Carl for a good weekend read this last weekend. It’s funny how your perspective changes over here: I was so excited to have a whole paper, days later I was still reading out the fine print of the 5th grade cricket results, much to Cassy’s disgust!
I know after receiving an email from Mum just the other day, that she has distributed her various treasures to family members, no doubt well received, a little taste of Taiwan that I didn’t know much about (the jade market) and to be honest, don’t want to know much more! Speaking of which, Cassy is going to a jeweler downtown on Saturday with one of her friends (she’s American!) to see if she can get her sapphires set into earrings.
Well, that’s about it from here: school is reaching that last two months zone, where everything that should have been done is suddenly rearing its ugly head: not a pretty sight for the serial procrastinator, but one which I’ve seen often enough before!
Monday, April 26, 2004
Monday, April 19, 2004
Looks like Mum just made it out of here on time, as the days since last weekend have been progressively hotter, today producing the first real knock you flat humid heat that feels like a wall when you first step into it in the morning. We’ve slowed our walk to school down a notch to avoid arriving drenched in sweat and the dust and breeze just seem to exacerbate the scorching temperatures. Ross and I will desperately need to get the car’s air-conditioner fixed before we embark on another trip to the beach!
Carl, Chad, Cathy and I are beginning our quest to gain 40 more university credits so we can move up another pay scale. We considered doing another Master’s degree, or even a PhD, but we hope to fast track this, so we’re taking independent study courses through the University of San Diego. The first packet arrived and much to our collective horror, contained no less than 15 assignments……it might not be quite as easy as we’d first hoped! We’d planned to keep pumping out the subjects, enrolling in each one before we’d finished the last, to ensure a constant regime, all in the hope of finishing all 40 credits before September 2005 in order to go up the pay scale the year after next (academic year for us here). We’re sharing texts etc, but there is no escaping the fact the work needs to be done, so wish us luck!!
Exciting news for me mid week was the long awaited arrival of my new 6’ 4” board. The custom design, penned in a sketch with textas, was magnificently translated into a board that looks great and rides very well. It was a massive learning curve for me as I expected, moving back to a short board after 12 years on the mini mal, by shoulders and arms screaming for respite after the first paddle out, the matchstick-like qualities of the board not giving any stability like my old board and the fact I now have to sit another 10 metres in to catch a wave, all adding to the strange sensations of pleasure and pain I had when christening the board after work on Wednesday afternoon. I was heartened to stand up most of the time and even managed a cutback of sorts on one wave, but in between times, provided great amusement for the fishermen on shore by having one foot on, one foot wildly swinging in midair, shifting weight so far forward that I tumbled over the front of the board and actually totally sliding off the thing when going for a wave! Well, I always knew it wouldn’t be easy, and I was right. Still like most things, I’ll persevere long after some would give up, I suspect because of sheer pig headedness and not wanting to admit defeat. Ross has taken to my “old board” like a fish to water, so I’ll probably have to persevere, as it will be very difficult to get it back off him!
Carl’s board, a 6’ 10” with a bit more width and depth through the middle is a similar success, he’s so convinced it’s right for him, that he is now looking to sell the other one. His design also turned out just as he had planned and my “knights” theme board will eventually get an airing on the photo page when we take a few more shots and get them developed.
We’ve quite missed Mum this week, but have been kept very busy by the demands of the start of the last quarter of school and all the associated hoopla. Cass has been kept extremely busy in her role as “makeup queen” for the middle school play, an extravaganza quite incredible to behold as you’d expect from this school, her budget seemingly without limit and already spent US$500 just to start on makeup alone! She has a hectic time coming up, with a dress rehearsal last Saturday, leading to mini performances at matinees for the little kiddies this week and the sold out big three performances this weekend. Fast but very furious, it will all be over for another year this time next week.
We’ve scammed ourselves onto another Cathay business class promotion for our trip back in June and our return in August, so at not that much more cost we’ll enjoy the extra space and all the trimmings. We’re very excited to be coming back in June after our European sojourn at Christmas; it feels like a long, long time since we’ve seen good old Newcs! See you all soon………..
Carl, Chad, Cathy and I are beginning our quest to gain 40 more university credits so we can move up another pay scale. We considered doing another Master’s degree, or even a PhD, but we hope to fast track this, so we’re taking independent study courses through the University of San Diego. The first packet arrived and much to our collective horror, contained no less than 15 assignments……it might not be quite as easy as we’d first hoped! We’d planned to keep pumping out the subjects, enrolling in each one before we’d finished the last, to ensure a constant regime, all in the hope of finishing all 40 credits before September 2005 in order to go up the pay scale the year after next (academic year for us here). We’re sharing texts etc, but there is no escaping the fact the work needs to be done, so wish us luck!!
Exciting news for me mid week was the long awaited arrival of my new 6’ 4” board. The custom design, penned in a sketch with textas, was magnificently translated into a board that looks great and rides very well. It was a massive learning curve for me as I expected, moving back to a short board after 12 years on the mini mal, by shoulders and arms screaming for respite after the first paddle out, the matchstick-like qualities of the board not giving any stability like my old board and the fact I now have to sit another 10 metres in to catch a wave, all adding to the strange sensations of pleasure and pain I had when christening the board after work on Wednesday afternoon. I was heartened to stand up most of the time and even managed a cutback of sorts on one wave, but in between times, provided great amusement for the fishermen on shore by having one foot on, one foot wildly swinging in midair, shifting weight so far forward that I tumbled over the front of the board and actually totally sliding off the thing when going for a wave! Well, I always knew it wouldn’t be easy, and I was right. Still like most things, I’ll persevere long after some would give up, I suspect because of sheer pig headedness and not wanting to admit defeat. Ross has taken to my “old board” like a fish to water, so I’ll probably have to persevere, as it will be very difficult to get it back off him!
Carl’s board, a 6’ 10” with a bit more width and depth through the middle is a similar success, he’s so convinced it’s right for him, that he is now looking to sell the other one. His design also turned out just as he had planned and my “knights” theme board will eventually get an airing on the photo page when we take a few more shots and get them developed.
We’ve quite missed Mum this week, but have been kept very busy by the demands of the start of the last quarter of school and all the associated hoopla. Cass has been kept extremely busy in her role as “makeup queen” for the middle school play, an extravaganza quite incredible to behold as you’d expect from this school, her budget seemingly without limit and already spent US$500 just to start on makeup alone! She has a hectic time coming up, with a dress rehearsal last Saturday, leading to mini performances at matinees for the little kiddies this week and the sold out big three performances this weekend. Fast but very furious, it will all be over for another year this time next week.
We’ve scammed ourselves onto another Cathay business class promotion for our trip back in June and our return in August, so at not that much more cost we’ll enjoy the extra space and all the trimmings. We’re very excited to be coming back in June after our European sojourn at Christmas; it feels like a long, long time since we’ve seen good old Newcs! See you all soon………..
Sunday, April 11, 2004
Mum was keen to check out some more jade and precious stones on Saturday, so we made our way down to the weekend jade market late morning, another first for us. We found it uneventfully, nestled beneath the N/S expressway’s outer end. What an awesome sight greeted us! The market had every variety and grade of jade, precious stone and rock in every imaginable carving and setting stretching out, seemingly for miles under the glaring light of thousands of strung halogen globes. There were at least 8 aisles of merchandise packed onto individual stallholders tables, each aisle nearly a km long! You can imagine my delight at traipsing through this labyrinth of all things boring, but for some reason, Mum and Cass seemed to lose all sense of time and reasoning in here! Many purchases were made, but I won’t spoil the surprise for any who may be the recipients, suffice to say, they were many and varied and Cass’ birthday money from her parents must have been burning a hole in her pocket as she bought some beautiful, big, unset sapphires, which she’ll get made into earrings at some point. When I got a chance to “break the spell” it was close to 3 o’clock and my stomach was playing a merry hunger dance. When looking for a quick emergency meal, we relented and went to Maccas, but I assured Mum it was part of the cultural experience: you do have to check if it really IS the same the world over (it is!!)
While Cass slaved over a hot stove making a Japanese Bon curry for tea, I took Mum up to the “Mother of God” catholic church for the Easter vigil mass. The priest was Mexican, I taught the Korean altar boy, and knew the American and Taiwanese boys from school, the assistant was a black African and the congregation were a mix of American, Canadian, Taiwanese, Chinese, Australian, Korean that I know of. Mum quite enjoyed the experience, and we came home to eat a tasty tea and watch the “Bourne Identity” on cable before retiring.
We’re having a lazy day today as Cass and I try to get our minds round a return to work tomorrow. I took another of Mum’s films to the developer this morning and we’ll pick them up later and Cass has just returned from doing the weekly food shopping. We might wander up to Chung Shan to have a look at the pottery shop later, but haven’t got any firm plans. Daniel is all prepped up to whisk Mum off in his limo to the airport at 1 tomorrow afternoon…. we’ll feel a little lost with her gone and we’ll have to adjust to our normal Taipei Life for another 8 weeks.
While Cass slaved over a hot stove making a Japanese Bon curry for tea, I took Mum up to the “Mother of God” catholic church for the Easter vigil mass. The priest was Mexican, I taught the Korean altar boy, and knew the American and Taiwanese boys from school, the assistant was a black African and the congregation were a mix of American, Canadian, Taiwanese, Chinese, Australian, Korean that I know of. Mum quite enjoyed the experience, and we came home to eat a tasty tea and watch the “Bourne Identity” on cable before retiring.
We’re having a lazy day today as Cass and I try to get our minds round a return to work tomorrow. I took another of Mum’s films to the developer this morning and we’ll pick them up later and Cass has just returned from doing the weekly food shopping. We might wander up to Chung Shan to have a look at the pottery shop later, but haven’t got any firm plans. Daniel is all prepped up to whisk Mum off in his limo to the airport at 1 tomorrow afternoon…. we’ll feel a little lost with her gone and we’ll have to adjust to our normal Taipei Life for another 8 weeks.
We’ve had a very full and interesting week here with Mum and have had the experience that often occurs when guiding a visitor around of discovering a few things for ourselves.
We visited Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall on Tuesday after a trip on the gleaming showpiece of the Taipei public transport system, the MRT. We tried all our local tricks to secure seats, like moving to the front of platforms and we were pretty successful. We viewed a hunger strike outside CKS of students protesting the election result before wandering past the Koi ponds to see the changing of the guards in the hall. Mum was impressed with the precision movements of the “toy soldiers” as they changed and we ate in the food hall of Shin Kong Mitsukoshi after a train ride back. Mum was very adventurous and ordered a Taiwanese style chicken wrap with oyster and Mirin sauce, which I’ll try myself next time we’re there. We caught a taxi from here to the Bade Rd jade and antique alley and although some stalls were shut on the weekday, Mum made some purchases and enjoyed the experience. This alley doesn’t even rate a mention on the maps; we’d spied it after speeding past on the scooter to the east of the city some time ago. We MRTd it home and Cass cooked some salmon mornay for tea as we introduced Mum to the delights of Chinese cable TV and the omnipresent Ultimate fighting challenge on Newasahi.
We had an easy morning and put some photos in for developing before posting some postcards for Mum and finding the local “Mother of God” Catholic Church for Mum to visit on Saturday night for the Easter vigil. We guided the car down the hill to give Mum a tour of the school after this and viewed just the highlights, including Cassy’s class, my office and auditoriums, indoor pools, tracks, post offices, cafeterias etc. Later that afternoon/evening, we drove down to the framers and on to the Shilin night market, which was mercifully “empty”, just enough people around at that early midweek time to make things interesting rather than claustrophobic. Mum made a few more purchases here and savoured the sights smells and sounds that are ever present in this bustling centre of street commerce before heading home to a meal out at the local Kari Curry.
I snuck out for a surf at the Pillbox early Thursday morning after spying a raging swell on the Jinshan web cam. It was pretty hectic out there, big, stormy and pouring rain on the coast. There were a few good waves to be had, but I wasn’t really enjoying it by myself, so made it back by about 10.30, picking up Mum’s photos on the way. We took the inner NS expressway into the city, a novel experience for us as we’d never driven downtown and the scooters are diverted way to the west before joining the city traffic. We made our way to the south east of the city to the world’s tallest building, the Taipei 101. After parking in the basement car park and having a casual lunch at Barista Coffee on the 4th floor, we investigated the “Page One” bookstore. This amazing store is at least twice the size of any bookshop we’d ever seen, almost all titles in English! We were absolutely blown away and checked some favorite authors, only to find that they not only stocked the latest offerings, but the whole collection of works of most of these writers. A most exciting find! We bought a ladder on the way home at B&Q and headed off to the local Teppanyaki restaurant for tea where we met up with Carl and Hiroko and the boys. The cooks were in great form, flashing spatulas and cooking all sorts of seafood, sprouts and eggs with their characteristic flair. Mum proved to be more than competent with the chopsticks, surviving various “tests” with aplomb, including bean sprouts, diced cabbage and the ultimate, a whole fried egg! We had a relaxing coffee and cake at a lovely little teahouse called “English Romance”, just down a nearby alley with Carl and Hiroko after the boys took themselves home after the meal.
On Friday morning, Cass and I took the kitties for their rabies shots, which was fairly uneventful except for Virg taking great exception to her jab by viciously clawing and biting her handler (me!) before we took them home to calm down. We then caught the MRT all the way to the end of the northern line to Damshuie, where we wandered the waterfront and Mum took a 10-minute shoulder massage from a blind masseuse. Refreshed from this we then embarked on a ferry ride to Fisherman’s Wharf, another adventure we’d been meaning to take for years now, so it was great to be able to play tourist guide again! There was a most innovatively designed bridge at the wharf and a very impressive fresh seafood restaurant, yet even though we were quite hungry, we decided to catch the ferry back to Damshuie for lunch, owing to the exclusively Chinese menu (a constant irritation to the limited reader of Chinese characters!). We checked out the 50NT Pizza in town, and Mum and I had a very tasty seafood one, Cass the vegetarian, so we’ll try the local Teh Shing Rd outlet some time in the future on the strength of that. We came home and watched the “Shipping News” on DVD before heading to the previously “written up” Big Nose Pasta for tea. We all had the melt-in-your-mouth snapper dish before heading over for a quick look at the local Takashimaya department store, where the girls looked at some beautiful things and Mum wondered at the massive aquarium and array of specialty international shops, including her “own” Georg Jensen!
We visited Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall on Tuesday after a trip on the gleaming showpiece of the Taipei public transport system, the MRT. We tried all our local tricks to secure seats, like moving to the front of platforms and we were pretty successful. We viewed a hunger strike outside CKS of students protesting the election result before wandering past the Koi ponds to see the changing of the guards in the hall. Mum was impressed with the precision movements of the “toy soldiers” as they changed and we ate in the food hall of Shin Kong Mitsukoshi after a train ride back. Mum was very adventurous and ordered a Taiwanese style chicken wrap with oyster and Mirin sauce, which I’ll try myself next time we’re there. We caught a taxi from here to the Bade Rd jade and antique alley and although some stalls were shut on the weekday, Mum made some purchases and enjoyed the experience. This alley doesn’t even rate a mention on the maps; we’d spied it after speeding past on the scooter to the east of the city some time ago. We MRTd it home and Cass cooked some salmon mornay for tea as we introduced Mum to the delights of Chinese cable TV and the omnipresent Ultimate fighting challenge on Newasahi.
We had an easy morning and put some photos in for developing before posting some postcards for Mum and finding the local “Mother of God” Catholic Church for Mum to visit on Saturday night for the Easter vigil. We guided the car down the hill to give Mum a tour of the school after this and viewed just the highlights, including Cassy’s class, my office and auditoriums, indoor pools, tracks, post offices, cafeterias etc. Later that afternoon/evening, we drove down to the framers and on to the Shilin night market, which was mercifully “empty”, just enough people around at that early midweek time to make things interesting rather than claustrophobic. Mum made a few more purchases here and savoured the sights smells and sounds that are ever present in this bustling centre of street commerce before heading home to a meal out at the local Kari Curry.
I snuck out for a surf at the Pillbox early Thursday morning after spying a raging swell on the Jinshan web cam. It was pretty hectic out there, big, stormy and pouring rain on the coast. There were a few good waves to be had, but I wasn’t really enjoying it by myself, so made it back by about 10.30, picking up Mum’s photos on the way. We took the inner NS expressway into the city, a novel experience for us as we’d never driven downtown and the scooters are diverted way to the west before joining the city traffic. We made our way to the south east of the city to the world’s tallest building, the Taipei 101. After parking in the basement car park and having a casual lunch at Barista Coffee on the 4th floor, we investigated the “Page One” bookstore. This amazing store is at least twice the size of any bookshop we’d ever seen, almost all titles in English! We were absolutely blown away and checked some favorite authors, only to find that they not only stocked the latest offerings, but the whole collection of works of most of these writers. A most exciting find! We bought a ladder on the way home at B&Q and headed off to the local Teppanyaki restaurant for tea where we met up with Carl and Hiroko and the boys. The cooks were in great form, flashing spatulas and cooking all sorts of seafood, sprouts and eggs with their characteristic flair. Mum proved to be more than competent with the chopsticks, surviving various “tests” with aplomb, including bean sprouts, diced cabbage and the ultimate, a whole fried egg! We had a relaxing coffee and cake at a lovely little teahouse called “English Romance”, just down a nearby alley with Carl and Hiroko after the boys took themselves home after the meal.
On Friday morning, Cass and I took the kitties for their rabies shots, which was fairly uneventful except for Virg taking great exception to her jab by viciously clawing and biting her handler (me!) before we took them home to calm down. We then caught the MRT all the way to the end of the northern line to Damshuie, where we wandered the waterfront and Mum took a 10-minute shoulder massage from a blind masseuse. Refreshed from this we then embarked on a ferry ride to Fisherman’s Wharf, another adventure we’d been meaning to take for years now, so it was great to be able to play tourist guide again! There was a most innovatively designed bridge at the wharf and a very impressive fresh seafood restaurant, yet even though we were quite hungry, we decided to catch the ferry back to Damshuie for lunch, owing to the exclusively Chinese menu (a constant irritation to the limited reader of Chinese characters!). We checked out the 50NT Pizza in town, and Mum and I had a very tasty seafood one, Cass the vegetarian, so we’ll try the local Teh Shing Rd outlet some time in the future on the strength of that. We came home and watched the “Shipping News” on DVD before heading to the previously “written up” Big Nose Pasta for tea. We all had the melt-in-your-mouth snapper dish before heading over for a quick look at the local Takashimaya department store, where the girls looked at some beautiful things and Mum wondered at the massive aquarium and array of specialty international shops, including her “own” Georg Jensen!
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Well, it’s two weeks or so since I’ve written here, I apologize to my faithful readers and….. whinge, whinge, no emails for Davey!
Of course, these past weeks have been very busy as the school wound done for Spring Break and we had reports and portfolio conferences to attend to, watching various borrowed DVDS from friends like The Office (series 1 and 2) which was about the funniest thing I’ve seen since the first run of Faulty Towers and believe it or not George and Mildred series 1 (!)
We’ve been watching the Knights’ progress with ever increasing alarm since Joey’s injury and don’t hold out much hope for a flying grand final visit this year, although we won’t give up all hope!
The big news is the arrival of my Mum on Saturday night! Mum has had her visit planned for some time and we were really looking forward to her arrival for this break. She did arrive safely but not before various complications, including delayed flights and the non-arrival of her big bag. We arranged to have the bag delivered to school on Sunday, whereupon I decided I’d collect it on the scooter, which was quite a sight as I couldn’t turn the handlebars, so had to lean precariously into each corner before getting it home safely. We’ve had some interesting adventures already, including taking Mum shopping to the local supermarket to view the various exotic goods and show her our walking route to and fro. Yesterday, Cassy awoke on her birthday to receive some wonderful presents from Chris and Val (brought by Mum) of money to go on an extensive shopping trip(!) and a combined present for her and me from Mum of photos of Newcastle commissioned from my sister, professional photographer Sue (unashamed plug coming up…. fotojenik (02) 4961 3362, for amazing, innovative photos for weddings, events or portraiture) The photos are quite incredible and two very large prints of Newcastle harbour on Maritime Festival day and another of a kite surfer over Newcastle beach are better than any of the commercial prints we have on our walls here right now. 4 more beautiful and interesting shots around the city add to the overall effect and we’ll get them framed while Mum is here. Cass received a phone call from Sue as well as her Mum and Dad, so she was well satisfied, even though she’s now the older woman again for the next 9 days!
We embarked on a journey to the north east coast in the mid morning, traveling along the main road to Baishawan beach, where we met up with Carl and family, a lovely surprise as we had expected to meet them at Jinshan. Apparently Carl had left me a gigantic message in the sand indicating where we’d gone….who needs a mobile phone when you’ve got friends like this! (I’m sure he’d think otherwise) I stole Carl’s board for a quick surf, while poor Mum and Cass looked on, but we didn’t stay long, mainly due to the rapidly deteriorating conditions. Onwards passed the newly discovered (and named!) surfing spots of “the lookout” and “restaurants” (fodder for another blog), past the Temple of the 13 dogs to Shimen Arch, where we stopped for a look at the scenic coast. They are doing heaps of work there at the moment stabilizing the great natural arch, which limited our photo opportunities a tad, but we wandered out on the rock platform and over the Givernyesque bridge between rock islands. Mum’s knee was doing a sterling job on all sorts of uneven terrain, so we were all very encouraged, especially as we’d also negotiated our 3rd floor stairs heaps of times as well by this stage! On to Jinshan beach, which um immediately recognized from her careful scanning of the web photos page, then, as time was getting on, to Jinshan town’s 7/11 for some takeaway lunch, which we ate next to a mountain stream half way up the mountains on the way to our next adventure. After lunch, we wound our way up the mountain to the fumaroles, which were putting on quite a show of steam venting and bubbling boiling sulfurous water. Not content to leave it at that, we called in to Yangminshan Park to do the short walk to the viewing pavilion. Poor old Mum followed us diligently to the top, whereupon she suggested a short rest…….we’d been charging around with our usual intensity of course!
After a few more photo ops, we went home via one of the interesting very narrow back roads and pointed out the monolithic Taipei American School on the way back through. After some quiet time at home and a bottle of champagne, we went to the Indian restaurant, The Spice Shop, for a very tasty dinner accompanied by some Argentinean red, a present from one of my colleagues. Cass had a very enjoyable birthday and we chatted till about midnight before hauling ourselves off to bed.
It’s another spectacular day here today, so we’ll make the most of it by traveling downtown. We’d like to show Mum the frighteningly tall Taipei 101, the Living Mall, Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, the Jade market and the Shilin night market before she leaves, so we’re hoping the weather stays fine for a few more days at least.
Just before signing off, I must also report that Mum was my scooter pillion passenger on a petrol station run and also to the bank, so is a certified scooter rider in Taipei now. I have threatened to take her on a “real” run downtown…………we’ll wait and see!!
Of course, these past weeks have been very busy as the school wound done for Spring Break and we had reports and portfolio conferences to attend to, watching various borrowed DVDS from friends like The Office (series 1 and 2) which was about the funniest thing I’ve seen since the first run of Faulty Towers and believe it or not George and Mildred series 1 (!)
We’ve been watching the Knights’ progress with ever increasing alarm since Joey’s injury and don’t hold out much hope for a flying grand final visit this year, although we won’t give up all hope!
The big news is the arrival of my Mum on Saturday night! Mum has had her visit planned for some time and we were really looking forward to her arrival for this break. She did arrive safely but not before various complications, including delayed flights and the non-arrival of her big bag. We arranged to have the bag delivered to school on Sunday, whereupon I decided I’d collect it on the scooter, which was quite a sight as I couldn’t turn the handlebars, so had to lean precariously into each corner before getting it home safely. We’ve had some interesting adventures already, including taking Mum shopping to the local supermarket to view the various exotic goods and show her our walking route to and fro. Yesterday, Cassy awoke on her birthday to receive some wonderful presents from Chris and Val (brought by Mum) of money to go on an extensive shopping trip(!) and a combined present for her and me from Mum of photos of Newcastle commissioned from my sister, professional photographer Sue (unashamed plug coming up…. fotojenik (02) 4961 3362, for amazing, innovative photos for weddings, events or portraiture) The photos are quite incredible and two very large prints of Newcastle harbour on Maritime Festival day and another of a kite surfer over Newcastle beach are better than any of the commercial prints we have on our walls here right now. 4 more beautiful and interesting shots around the city add to the overall effect and we’ll get them framed while Mum is here. Cass received a phone call from Sue as well as her Mum and Dad, so she was well satisfied, even though she’s now the older woman again for the next 9 days!
We embarked on a journey to the north east coast in the mid morning, traveling along the main road to Baishawan beach, where we met up with Carl and family, a lovely surprise as we had expected to meet them at Jinshan. Apparently Carl had left me a gigantic message in the sand indicating where we’d gone….who needs a mobile phone when you’ve got friends like this! (I’m sure he’d think otherwise) I stole Carl’s board for a quick surf, while poor Mum and Cass looked on, but we didn’t stay long, mainly due to the rapidly deteriorating conditions. Onwards passed the newly discovered (and named!) surfing spots of “the lookout” and “restaurants” (fodder for another blog), past the Temple of the 13 dogs to Shimen Arch, where we stopped for a look at the scenic coast. They are doing heaps of work there at the moment stabilizing the great natural arch, which limited our photo opportunities a tad, but we wandered out on the rock platform and over the Givernyesque bridge between rock islands. Mum’s knee was doing a sterling job on all sorts of uneven terrain, so we were all very encouraged, especially as we’d also negotiated our 3rd floor stairs heaps of times as well by this stage! On to Jinshan beach, which um immediately recognized from her careful scanning of the web photos page, then, as time was getting on, to Jinshan town’s 7/11 for some takeaway lunch, which we ate next to a mountain stream half way up the mountains on the way to our next adventure. After lunch, we wound our way up the mountain to the fumaroles, which were putting on quite a show of steam venting and bubbling boiling sulfurous water. Not content to leave it at that, we called in to Yangminshan Park to do the short walk to the viewing pavilion. Poor old Mum followed us diligently to the top, whereupon she suggested a short rest…….we’d been charging around with our usual intensity of course!
After a few more photo ops, we went home via one of the interesting very narrow back roads and pointed out the monolithic Taipei American School on the way back through. After some quiet time at home and a bottle of champagne, we went to the Indian restaurant, The Spice Shop, for a very tasty dinner accompanied by some Argentinean red, a present from one of my colleagues. Cass had a very enjoyable birthday and we chatted till about midnight before hauling ourselves off to bed.
It’s another spectacular day here today, so we’ll make the most of it by traveling downtown. We’d like to show Mum the frighteningly tall Taipei 101, the Living Mall, Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, the Jade market and the Shilin night market before she leaves, so we’re hoping the weather stays fine for a few more days at least.
Just before signing off, I must also report that Mum was my scooter pillion passenger on a petrol station run and also to the bank, so is a certified scooter rider in Taipei now. I have threatened to take her on a “real” run downtown…………we’ll wait and see!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)