Virg'n Mary are revelling in having us home for this long weekend. The weather has just cooled a touch, enough to make them want to share the "octagon" and you can see that they're very relaxed. It's continued to rain off and on for the last three days so we haven't done a lot, but I went for a surf on Saturday before going up to Clarky's on the way back to watch the AFL and NRL finals, which were on live. We didn't get home till 10.30 that night so you can only imagine the high jinks that ensued in between! I'm preparing to host a similar event next Sunday for the NRL grand final, with a borrowed data projector from school for the big screen effect on one wall. Should be a good show, but as it is a "school night" I don't think quite as much beer will be consumed.
Ross and I went out early this morning at 6 to get a few typhoon waves at the Pillbox, but were disappointed to get some half size mushy stuff that wasn't very satisfying at all. We contended with an amazing amount of rubbish both on the shore and in the water(see picture) and the water was a filthy mix of rubbish and mud. Surfing in Taiwan is certainly very different!
Cass and I plan to catch the MRT towards Tamshui this evening and drop off at Peitou to the Royal Host for tea. We had planned to go to Cafe India round the corner, but because we didn't do much today, we've decided on this mini adventure.
Apparently in the huge downpour in Newcastle recently our storage area was flooded and more importantly, all our boxes got wet before the pumps could get the water down again. Chris and Val and my mum now have the unenviable task of salvaging, cleaning etc, but we're concerned about our good books and irreplaceables like wedding photos. We'll wait for the verdict. We've just applied for a platinum visa card here too, which has all sorts of swishoo benefits which we can use, including access to many business class lounges at airports. Our silver status with Cathay may be about to run out, so that will be a welcome addition. We've just booked our first frequent flyer redemption tickets too so, next June we'll fly for free back to Australia and back. It's amazing how quickly these points rack up and the new card has a feature where points can be accrued on it as well, so we'll be using it for nearly everything from now on.