There’s a method in my madness of writing something for this blog each week. I’ve discovered to my horror that I can’t remember anything that happened more than one week before. I should have written last Sunday, but the day started with a surf and continued as Cass and I hosted a grand final party here at our place. We had a small core of die-hard fans. Ross and Lewy and Gurecki enjoyed the game and Wolly and Coombsy arrived later as they were held up downtown by “black hair and black eyes” as Coombsy texted it. Not content to leave that be, we had to adjourn to the “golden triangle” of the Green Bar, the One over the Road and back to the Pig. Never let anyone convince you that this is a good thing on a “school night”. The next few days were very quiet indeed; that last beer I had at the Pig was definitely off.
School muddled along through the week, great excitement for the 3rd grade with their community day on Thursday, but I wondered again how these PE teachers do it: the searing heat just about killed me and I was only out in it for a few hours.
We have just enjoyed the most relaxing 4-day break, long awaited and much needed. Unlike home, we follow the American system of two semesters in the year. This allows us to have a break at Christmas and our big “summer” break, but also means that we work quite intensively from August through to December. This is our one long weekend and many of our colleagues have flown off island to Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore etc. Much to our great disappointment, Chad and Cathy flew to Singapore to interview for jobs there next year…we don’t want them to go!
The days off started with Cass and me eating lunch on Friday at Chili’s in the Warner complex. This is an American burger, steak restaurant that has mouth-watering meals at staggeringly steep prices! We give in to a little slice of such decadence on holidays from time to time and it was great. Later that day, we went to see “Flightplan” with Jody Foster. It was pretty good, but personally, I thought she trotted out the old “Panic Room” persona and even the gorgeous Aussie Kate Beaghan couldn’t save it from a little step above mediocrity. Still, we love the Internet booking method. We book from home and always select these two seats off to the side with expansive legroom with an aisle beside. It’s just like our own little lounge room!
Surfing has taken a fair bit of time, along with the driving to get there. We’ve made a few wrong calls in terms of spots, necessitating a lot of driving. Yesterday we ended up surfing a spot that is normally just 30-40 minutes away, but we tried others first, meaning we drove for nearly 3 hours just to get there. We’ve had some success with the waves over the past few days and I’ve been a little more diligent in keeping up the pointy hat entries. It just takes a jiffy, writing some inanities to describe the latest surf and bunging a few photos on. You can always check it out here. My wonder sister, Helen, also known as Miss Ebay Australia, managed to get my new camera into my hands over here and it takes a pretty mean shot too, as evidenced by latest pictures here and on Pointy Hat. I know you will be devastated that the file photos of Virg’n Mary will stop, but new ones of the “girls” will feature again soon!!
Cass and I had a bit of an adventure last night. We were all set to walk around the corner to the Indian, but I suggested we try to find a restaurant whose website I’d stumbled upon a few weeks ago. It’s called “Alleycats” and the site gave a little hint as to its wares. It was secreted away a few blocks behind the side entrance to Chiang Kai Chek Memorial Hall, so we got off the MRT there and went exploring. It seemed to be equidistant between 3 different MRT lines and stations, so it was a bit hard to find, but very worthwhile. It was a humming, lively little place in a basement and the smells were fantastic, the conversation lively (with a small bar serving draft beer attached). A foreign guy owns and runs it and it serves all sorts of calzones and pizzas, all stone oven and wood fired of course. What a rare treat here in Taipei. Cass and I had a great chat while we downed a few glasses of tasty Hoegaarden beer on tap and waited forever for our pizza. Neither of us had any lunch so we were a bit light headed by the time the mouth-watering pizzas arrived. To top it off the owner presented us with some complimentary “jet fuel” digestives. We hurtled out into the night feeling like we’d been on a jet and I amazed myself by finding my way back to the train station!
Today has been one of those deliciously lazy days: slept in late, had pancakes and real coffees for breakfast, lingered for hours over very interesting Herald clippings that Mum had sent us. We had a late lunch then watched “The Dish” on DVD and now I’m writing this. All is well in the world……..