Typhoon Talim lashed away at the northern tip of Taiwan on Wednesday night prompting a school closure on Thursday. Much to our horror the winds peaked in the night with some quite terrible force, rattling doors, sheeting rain at crazy angles and generally huffing and puffing with fearsome gusts through the night. Our fear turned to relief and then delight the next morning as the rain and wind eased and the afternoon was left free for another adventure to the coast for the intrepid surfer boys. Our gale force wind dip into Damshui was completely reversed on Thursday when the Pillbox delivered beautiful strong offshore surf. It was quite a tonic for we long suffering surfers: the waves were fantastic, yet the water quality left just a little to be desired as silt from the river limited the water visibility to the extent that we couldn’t see our boards as we sat on them.
Cassy had a professional development day on Friday, where she lunched at a private club and then drank quantities of Moet et Chandon to celebrate the arrival of her principal’s first grandchild. Ostensibly the day was to look at scoring of tests or some such, but…I had a much more boring day as I dragged myself in to school for the longest day on record. This day set the world record for a workday: I swear it took at least 15 hours to complete! We charged over the mountain to catch the tail end of the swell, but we found little more than a blown out ripple.
Knowing that Saturday held no prospects for a wave, we headed down to the Taipei Contemporary Art gallery. We hadn’t been for ages and they had a fascinating exhibition on. Housed in a most beautiful old renovated building from the days of Japanese imperialist excess, the museum is such a haven from the bustle just outside. On our way, we took 5 paintings to be either re-framed or framed for the first time. Some mold had begun to affect the mats on paintings we’d brought with us and we also wanted to frame the etching on silk we bought from a street vendor in Vietnam. “Our” man at Chientan charged us the princely sum of about $120 A for all 5 jobs, which we can pick up in a week. Anyway, back to the MOCA, Taipei. There were some truly fascinating video installations that were extremely innovative. We didn’t quite “get” all of them, but the general sense was that Taipei’s contemporary art scene could be as spectacularly alternative as anywhere else! We enjoyed a couple of hours there before lunching at a very Parisian inspired café linked to the museum. Our lunch was quite delicious, but we spied a special takeaway cake when we were paying the bill. They had made tiny little croquembouches, which were an individual size copy of our wedding cake! We bought two to take home and they were most delicious.
This morning, Carl and Ross and I did a ring around to see who was interested in going for a surf. The swell had picked up again, the first waves of another typhoon headed this way. This one will just bring very annoying torrential rain as it veers towards Japan and we hold very little hope of another closure (!). We ventured to the rocket and I christened the underwater housing that goes with my new Sony camera. I had given it many tests in basins and showers etc. but this was the real deal! It performed very well and took some great shots, which I’ll put on the pointy over the next couple of days. That excitement over, I came home this afternoon so we could watch the Knight’s game together on TV. What a game! We were jumping around the lounge room, Virg’n Mary were perplexed at all the shouting and the Knight’s showed how well they would have gone in the semis…ah well, next year. Cass rang Chris for Father’s Day today and he was very chipper. I had a few thoughts about my own father today and thought he’d be quite interested in what we’ve been doing in the last few years and would probably quite like many aspects of our life here in Taipei. We continue to feast on our clippings from the Herald that Mum sends over, the last package arriving quite conveniently, just before the weekend. Must away to batten down the hatches and seal the exits ready for the next big blow!