Regular readers of this blog have been used to seeing a line of archives down the left hand side dating back to November 2002, 18 months after we arrived in Taiwan and when this blog began. They’re not there anymore! I switched to a beta Blog this week (apparently it is much better, more reliable and has other features), but I was reluctant as I didn’t want to tamper with the blog which has proven to be trouble free for so many years. Looks like I was right to be wary! I saved the template of the blog and all the back posts just in case something happened, but I can’t get those archives to appear on the public version of the blog. I’m trying to get some answers from some blog friends online (!), but so far, no success. Anyway, sorry, if you enjoyed looking back at any posts, you will just have the current page of posts for the time being. When/if I can retrieve them, it will be pretty obvious: they’ll re-appear. Stop Press: Done! One of the blog community very generously pointed out that I had been using a superceded template for many years, believe it or not! I put a bit of html into the template and voila, they're back. STOP Stop press!: brand new template necessary...hope you like it. It will let me add different images, links etc if we want.

The pointyhat blog, of lesser importance to me, and really just a bit of fun, of course, as is the way with things like this where it really doesn’t matter, transferred seamlessly into the new format without a glitch. Frustrating!! Stop Press: pointyhat blog also now has a brand new look and template.

Cass and I have had a very busy week, trying to tie up lots of loose ends before shooting back home for 3 weeks at the end of this working week. We’ve had a candidate for superintendent here all week and another one arrives tomorrow. This has meant that the school has been abuzz with all sorts of special meetings and added time demands as we sort out who will be the next boss. It’s an amazing process, unlike anything we have seen back home: I don’t know if Big Al would get past the very first hurdle here! The candidates are short listed by a “search team” of interested admin, teachers and parents and brought to the school for interviews. The entire faculty and various constituency groups then have a chance to grill the candidate, including faculty, parents and students. Everyone fills in a feedback form and hopefully, that input goes a long way to deciding who the next boss will be. It’s quite a marathon: I’ll be having a meeting with the next candidate on Tuesday for an hour to talk all things ESL, after a similar meeting with the last candidate this week.

We went downtown after work early in the week and enjoyed getting out into the exciting inner city streets at night, which we don’t do often enough. There are just so many people about, all doing their individual things; meeting, shopping, browsing, chatting, drinking eating, walking, looking and a million other things…it was very exciting! We bought some Christmas presents and ordered some more, as well as a wedding present, but I won’t say too much just in case those recipients are reading! I’m going back down on the MRT on Thursday night to pick up a few items, while Cass stays home to pack her stuff. We’ve got Lily organized to look after the girls again which is great: she is reliable and trustworthy.

Our weekend was relatively subdued, but we caught a movie, Déjà vu, which was pretty good, nothing to rave about but entertaining with Denzel Washington in the lead. He always gives a very polished performance. We watched a DVD this afternoon which was a great laugh. Many of you have probably seen it, but it didn’t make the “blockbuster” cut for the cinema here, so we’ve only just watched it. “Little Miss Sunshine” with Toni Collette was just fantastic….we’re still laughing at some of the scenes! I went out and get some reasonable waves at the Pillbox today: it’s turned cold and I wore my wetsuit for the first time this winter season. It was raining and quite bleak and I wondered aloud as I sat out there by myself why on earth I had decided to go out! It wasn’t bad actually and blew a few lazy weekend cobwebs away. I spied one of the ubiquitous Taipei County chicken roasters on the way back so paused to take a couple of shots…just by the side of the road, dirty old farmers with dirty old roasters: bird flu anyone??!! I reckon they’re great! Photos: Virg portrait, the girls together and a couple of those great chicken shots.

mexican wave

cricket viewing and xmas tree

wal enjoying his snacks!

toucheng entrance


Report writing is so much easier when you have a template to work from, so this week, I’ve had to spend a fair bit of time writing my comments as I wrote them all from scratch. When you’re teaching the same grade level and similar ability and characteristics are shown by kids over the years, the natural tendency is to rely on previous reports for some inspiration. The inspiration is occasionally just that, and occasionally the opportunity to copy slabs of that comment into a new one. I decided that I’d recycled my present comments just too many times, so I set out to write individualized comments from scratch, about 1200 characters each for my 21 kids. To cut a long, and extremely boring story short, it was quite a pain, but done!

We’ve had the 2nd Ashes cricket test on here this weekend, once again, via streaming video over the internet. We seem to have ironed out all the kinks and even today, high traffic Sunday, it didn’t miss a beat. As I mentioned before, the secret is threefold: get everything possible off the hard drive, have the latest and greatest software and hardware, and lastly have a superfast connection. It’s been well worth it and I’ve just signed up for another year of 3M connection speed on the cable modem, so it should continue. Companies really reward loyalty here as I think the locals are very fickle and tend to gravitate to new operators offering very attractive looking honeymoon deals on connections. We’re paying about $280 Australian per year for uninterrupted, unlimited download and upload and speeds which are not even offered in Australia yet. I just hope they’ve got it sorted properly by the time we get home! It really is the tyranny of a small population base: while we Aussies enjoy the lifestyle, prices and services just can’t compete with these teeming masses over here in such confined spaces.

There was some talk of doing an early dash to the beach for a surf this morning, but the cam showed a big, messy slopfest out at Jinshan. The Pillbox leapt straight to mind, but I have to admit, I got cold feet almost literally at the thought. I went out to get some mouthwatering wood fired pizza takeaway last night and noted that almost overnight, as is the way in Taiwan, the temperature has dropped, the wind has begun to scythe through outer garments and it is really quite cold!

I put the Christmas tree up today (an arduous task of removing the tree from the box, fluffing the branches and plugging it in!). We really love this Christmas tree: it spins around on a base and the fibre optic threads light up and shimmy and shake and put on quite the show. I’ve been known to stare at this tree for extended periods, I’m sure it has some kind of hypnotic power! We had a great crowd here this afternoon for the cricket, including Josh, Lewy and Wal. Minus Lewy, this also makes up our boxing club at school and some combinations of the three of us have a good workout on the bag, speedball and focus pads most weekdays.

Cass “enjoyed” the annual candlelight winter wonderland dinner at school on Friday night. It’s a very strange affair, where all the middle school kids get tizzied up to the nines and eat together in the muted lights of a cafeteria quite miraculously transformed for the night. It’s not compulsory, but everyone attends…one of those types of shows.
Photos: the big gate at Toucheng and the cricket crowd, including a Mexican wave attempt! We'll be home in Merewether in less than two weeks! Hurrah!!

dawn gold

nice but crowded

girls relax


I mused some time ago that if the cricket was broadcast here, I just might not go back home. I will change my mind and state that we will still come home at some stage, but the virtually unthinkable has happened: we watched the first Ashes test ball by ball live over this long weekend.

Having ramped up the computer’s speed and memory and replacing the video card and sound card, I had made some great strides towards this momentous event some time back. I also had a huge external hard drive to which I transferred nearly everything, allowing the internal hard drive to function as well as possible for streaming.
We subscribed to an English site which broadcasts all sorts of sport over the internet on a pay per view system. To watch this test we had to buy it for $30 U.S. on credit card. It seems steep when you’re used to getting it all for free, but in a country that just has no access to these broadcasts, we thought it was a pretty good price for so many hours of entertainment.

Cass was riveted to the lounge for most of the 4 days play as was I except I dashed to the beach before dawn one day and in the lunch break on another to maximize the time we had to watch it! The dawn dash was just fantastic: I got wave after wave of fairly good quality, the best part being the lack of any other person at all. It was quite blissful out there and very "UnTaiwanese" I suppose as it was so calm and peaceful. Anyway, back to the cricket. Shaun and Lewy dropped in to watch a session or two as did Wal and Tina. Carl subscribed as well and he and Hiroko and the boys enjoyed it immensely. It was just what we needed after a very long semester with only one other very short break. We did manage to get out of the house at some stages (!) and enjoyed some great meals and fantastic autumn weather. It’s usually starting to get a little cool by now, yet Cassy is lamenting the fact that she can’t break out her winter wardrobe just yet, as the temperatures are just perfect during the day, with a hint of a chilly breeze when the sun goes down the only indication that winter is approaching. I’m sure we’ll just start getting used to the cool when we hop on the plane to come back to a scorching Aussie summer: not that we’re complaining!

We both had a wonderful long weekend for Thanksgiving, it was so relaxing. Our friends from Hobart, Shaun and Katie, whose wedding we attended 2 Christmases ago, had their first baby yesterday. They are doing well, but Shaun looks just a little shell shocked: he’d been sitting on our lounge watching the cricket on Thursday, blissfully unaware of events about to unfold and was a father the next morning after a whirlwind labour and mad taxi dash to the hospital. It makes us tired just thinking about it!! Photos: The “Rocket” just after dawn, a crowd at the rocket the next day, and the girls relaxing.

4 and an orchid!

entrance

new palace

field day


The Model United Nations Convention held here at school this week thwarted my attempts to hit the bag this Friday. As the representative for the Congo shared the concerns of his country about multinational oil companies’ exploitation, the staccato sounds of bashing the bag or the speed ball probably wouldn’t have gone down too well! I went into the weight room for a while instead, before joining a few of the boys for a beer at Diamond Tony’s. We had a great afternoon out on the terrace looking down the hill towards school as the sun went down, but I went home pretty early as Cass and I were booked for an important task the next day. Cass had gone with Kathy down to the bag shop to pick up some goods which looked fantastic, after spending the day in professional development, the highlight of which was a lunch at Chili’s!

Saturday, we were booked up to do one of the tri-annual ESL admissions tests. Even though we’ve had over a hundred applicants in the past and this time just a dozen, I made an executive decision, and decided we needed two people on deck to proctor the exam. It’s just not safe to have one person: if someone, teacher or student falls ill etc. what could be done? Anyway, I’ll claim our daily rate of pay (for each of us) as we then graded and sorted the exams. It took all morning for the exam and a time afterwards to grade so we felt pretty tired at the end of it. Casino Royale, the latest Bond extravaganza beckoned later in the afternoon, so we bought our usual seats and scootered over to Miramar. It was superb! I’m ranking this the best Bond film ever. Not only did it have the most exciting of Big Bold Bond stunt scenes, but Bond himself was slightly vulnerable and as Cass pointed out, the women in the film slightly more than just two dimensional babes. Model and computer generation skills added to an amazing climactic scene which had to be seen to be believed…great fun! We had dinner at Aubergine then headed home and had an early night, only to get up again at 11pm in time to watch the Aussies smack the Poms in the delayed rugby league test.

After a late night due to the footy and a very busy Saturday, we were pretty tired this morning. We’d planned to head to the coast if there was any surf at all, but the webcams showed a beautiful sunny day, no wind and only a six inch swell. Knowing this, we luxuriated in a long, relaxed breakfast and then both had a good read of our books, Ian McEuan’s “Saturday” for me and P.D.James’ “The Lighthouse” for Cassy which are both clever and captivating. I fell asleep on the lounge for a little while after that (!) before we decided to go over to the National Palace Museum. The National Palace has been going through a long and costly renovation and though the façade looks exactly the same, the interior is a gleaming new, stylish interior of muted colour and gorgeous marble. The gift shop alone is worth the visit, items ranging from the kitsch (pens and mouse mats decorated with pictures of Chinese treasures) through to the stupendous (beautiful centuries old C’hing dynasty pottery pieces at premium prices). A Starbucks snacky lunch was relaxing, and we even picked up a little bottle of caramel sauce to add some pizzazz to our Thanksgiving treats!

Short week this week as we will truly give thanks to working in an American school: Thanksgiving gives us a 4 day weekend starting on Thursday. We’ve ordered an apple pie and a blueberry pie from food services, bought a 5 day pass to the internet rights to the 1st Ashes test which starts 7am Taiwan time on Thursday! (We really hope we get an uninterrupted feed…fingers crossed) There will be some of the Aussie boys here at that early hour, hopefully to see Glenn McGrath bowl that first ball of another Ashes summer: it will be surreal watching it from here, raisin toast and coffee early in the morning but, oh, so sweet!
Photos: Dave on field day with three of his enthusiastic third graders! Two shots of Cassy at the National Palace Museum and another of all 4 of us with Cassy’s orchid!

Not another Tienmu restaurant biting the dust! We went out on Friday evening ready to taste the Thai delights available at the Orchid and the Elephant on Tienmu East Rd. only to find the ominous red sign with black characters drawn asking for a new tenant. Why, we asked ourselves? This was great authentic Thai food served in beautiful clean and tasteful surrounds: it always seemed packed and popular. Well, I suppose we hadn’t been for a few months either. Taipei residents are so spoiled for choice in eating establishments and very, very unforgiving for those that charge what they feel is a premium. The poor restaurateurs must have such a low margin, I don’t know why anyone gets into it. Anyway, we went off to “Bird”, but the sign was off and no-one seemed home so we scootered off to the west to find the “heard of, but never been to” Thai Town. Bad move! We couldn’t find it in the maelstrom of Friday night traffic so made our way back to ye ole faithful Café India, where we enjoyed an absolutely mouth watering array of Indian delicacies.

Saturday’s lazy morning passed pleasantly as we fired up the coffee maker and ate raison toast and pancakes while enjoying lots of news from home via Herald clippings which we’re still receiving with great glee on a regular basis from Mum. Cass had arranged with her friend Kathy to visit the megalithic Taipei Jade Market (which Mum would also remember!) to have a look for some items. She went and saw her sapphire man, Kumar, but was disappointed in his lack of wares and lack of prospects for any more under a reasonable price. They also went to the adjoining flower market which is modeled after the jade market and is on the same gargantuan scale. How individual stallholders make a go of it is perplexing to say the least: perhaps they used to be restaurateurs! Cass arrived home with no gems (unusual!), but with an exquisite orchid instead, which we’ll try to keep alive as long as possible, neither one of us claiming to have anything remotely resembling a green thumb! I went off with Carl at midday to find the elusive expressway route to Wanli. We threaded our way through some traffic mayhem at Neihu before seamlessly sluicing onto the number 1 expressway north. From here, we went through the tollgates before transferring to expressway 3 and then exited at Wanli. “Backdoor Benny” style, we then traveled the last few Ks of the mountain road to the sea and popped up at Green Bay. Hurrah, we’d done it! We had a surf at the Rocket, not much good, but we managed to attract quite a crowd unfortunately. On the way home we missed the Neihu turnoff and experienced a few nervous moments in the guts of Taipei, but we made it out alive!

Sunday was almost a déjà vu of Saturday. The same lazy brekky followed by various plans, which all ended up being shelved as the sun came out again. We decided to take the mountain road to the activity centre at Jinshan. It was big and wild and even though we were expecting nice warm weather and had optimistically brought the beach umbrella, it was a little chilly and overcast. We ended up at the Rocket after checking Green Bay. It was pretty big and wild, but I went out by myself, safe in the knowledge that Carl was just a few minutes behind us. It proved to be really big and wild, but thoroughly enjoyable and I managed to get a fair few good waves. The best thing is, I just love the crowds here: when it gets above about 4 foot on the set, most of the local boys just don’t want to know!

We had a great weekend, topped off by finally finding the last few episodes of Australian Idol on an unexplored torrent site. I’ve dutifully downloaded same and we’ll have our Sunday dinner watching them, just as if we were at home. This overseas life is not all hardship(!) Photos: Cass with goods, Dave on a Rocket wave, Dave’s new fish and Cassy not too sure about Dave’s lovely new “hair”!

Writing this blog each week can become, well, tedious. For that reason and that alone, I gave it a miss this Sunday/Monday and said….”no, not this week”. See how long I lasted?! That said, and unlike previous times when I’ve said this will be a short one, then gone on to wax lyrically about the minutia of our lives, this one will be short!

We’re in a pretty cruisy zone here at the moment, both very fit and healthy and enjoying the change of weather. I’ve started walking to school each day again with Cass and I hit the bag and do some focus pads with either Josh or Wal (or both) most afternoons. I’d got into a very bad habit of riding the scooter to school, but we both really enjoy the walk: it clears the head both ways, in the morning from a good snooze and in the afternoon/evening, gives us a chance to dissect the happenings of the day and plan what we’ll do next whether it be socially or professionally.

The surf has been pretty crappy even by Taiwan standards lately, which you can probably tell looking at what I’m posting on Pointyhat. I’m putting all sorts of rubbish up there, much of which has but a very tenuous link with surfing!

We paid for a live stream of the Champion’s Trophy final in cricket the other day and it was very disappointing. We got a much interrupted feed unlike the week prior, when you could have been forgiven for thinking we back home in Australia watching the Aussies strut their stuff. We’ve already paid for the first two tests against the Poms, so we hope we have much better luck with the feed.

Anyway, that’s about it. Photos sparse as well, so how about Dave “hard at work” in the office, and directing traffic on the upper field on grade 3's field day.

no comment

flag

electric!

backdoor bird watch

Quick one today as I am actually at work, in a little lag time after lunch.
Not terribly much to report apart from the fact that Cassy had a very interesting day on Saturday. I didn’t do anything much at all on the weekend: we both decided it was because we had conferences with students and parents all day Thursday and Friday. It is very enervating meeting with parents as any teacher knows, and a solid two days can really catch up with you later. In saying that however, we also marveled again at just how great these kids are: it really is a delight to be teaching most of them.

Cassy had arranged with her friend Kathy, to visit a shop in downtown Taipei which makes beautiful bags from leather and other materials. She had heard about it some time ago, but Kathy was kind enough to chaperone her down as it is a bit hard to find. Off the MRT at Chungshan station and down a labyrinth of back alleys till, nestled in among lots of other tiny non-descript Chinese-looking shops lay the bag shop. When Cass got home, she was just so excited: tales of rack upon rack of beautiful handcrafted bags of all shapes and sizes with the added bonus that the craftsman would copy any bag that you bring. Cass has a small Coach handbag which she ordered in a different colour and Kathy got the same. I think Cassy is hoping she’ll draw one of the girls in our annual Christmas draw as she knows she’ll be able to get them something really beautiful and good value for money! (home now and continuing…)
After that, they made their way to two different “2 buck mega stores” straight from Japan. We have one tiny outlet down in Mingde Rd near our house, but Cass reports that these stores are like the K-Mart of $2 shops…just awesome in terms of floor size and range of products! Of course, nearly everything in there is completely useless, but at the time, it all looks like “must-have” product. Cass came home with a bulging bag full of goodies, some of which, I have to admit, looks pretty good! She spent the princely sum of about $30A and had a LOT to show for it.
On Saturday night, we experienced, for the first time in a long time, a long ride through the city at night on the scooter. Wow, what a heart starter!! We were on our way to and from the delicious Turkish delights down near the Sherwood and just soaked up the atmosphere on the way. Bright lights of the city, 200 scooters just going full pelt from every set of lights like so many mechanical bees on speed, and the dodgem car rules of the road over here made for exciting times: it was almost better than the final destination. We ate some great shish kebabs, took some chicken pides for takeaway and had a great night.

Sunday, we went to see the surprisingly impressive “The Prestige” at Miramar. Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale and Michael Caine…great actors carrying an unusual and impressive screenplay and a premise for a film that I cant compare to any other. Suffice to say, that while very different, it almost reached the heights of excellence that we’d enjoyed from “The Departed” just a few weeks ago. Our expectations for the film were mediocre at best, so we were pleasantly surprised.
Photos: I was asked to act as Dr. Lou Knee for a third grade science project and I was happy to oblige! Patriotic flag on the centre strip of a main road. Cass in Takashimaya electrical department. The girls perched looking at birds out the back door.

grand palace

very close!

dog on bike

injury

It’s a very rare occasion when I refuse an invitation to go to the beach after school if someone is heading over. This is exactly what I did on Wednesday, however, preferring to spend a bit of time doing some boxing and then heading home while it was still relatively early. We don’t get home until at least 6.30 if we head over and I didn’t think the quality of the surf warranted the trip this time. I got a call from Wal and Josh about 6 o’clock telling me that they were headed for Veteran’s Hospital here in Tienmu after Josh had a very solid longboard kicked into his face by an out of control surfer over at Jinshan. I went over to the hospital a short time later and was just in time to see him ushered in to a plastic surgeon who did a fantastic job sewing up a gaping wound. The nose had been broken as well, but luckily didn’t need re-setting. He’s a bit of a pretty boy, is Josh, and I think he was worried about it scarring! I suspect that you’ll hardly notice it in time.

This weekend has seen the arrival back in town of Chad and Cathy. They stayed with Gerri and Doug, so it worked out really well. Friday night, Chad went straight to the Green from the plane, and it was a pretty much designated boy’s night, just a half dozen of us and Chad catching up. We had a great time and backed up again on Saturday, when lots more people came down. Cass and I turned up about 9.30 in the evening and that was a good time, because we not only got to see Chad and Cathy, but also see the Aussies beat the Poms in cricket and a last gasp win over the Kiwis in the league…doesn’t get much better than that!!

So, a pretty wild couple of nights were had and we felt pretty socialized out today. Cassy really enjoyed catching up with what Cathy was doing and she heard all sorts about life in Singapore. It sounds like it would be just about perfect for couples with young kids (like Chad and Cathy). They have a live-in helper who does all the domestic duties and even cooks their meals as well as looking after the kids when needed! The school sounds like it is built on mega proportions, making even our school seem quite small in comparison. Conditions also sound better, but I can’t help thinking that it probably wouldn’t suit our circumstances nearly as well: it’s just too far from a beach for one thing! Anyway it was a little bitter-sweet to see them again. On the one hand, it felt great and just like old times to have them back, I half expected Ross and Coombsy to walk in the door as well! That’s the bitter: it was just for the weekend. The transient nature of international school teaching makes this happen a lot, but we’d been pretty sheltered from it until this year when lots of our good friends left and it has had an impact on our lives.

As is often the case after a couple of nights out in a row, we feel pretty tired today, so we’ve just hung around home, interrupted by a short walk to the Carrefour to get some supplies and a retrieval mission to pick up my scooter. Photos: an idyllic shot of the Grand Palace hotel taken near the airport. Cass leans back to catch a close-up look at a plane coming in to land….it’s very exciting and we can just get so close to the end of the runway here: it wouldn’t happen at home in a million years! Big dog on a scooter, one of Taipei’s regular funny sights, and Josh and friends at the hospital.

turkish gold...

contemporary art!

Beitou station and fountain

Royal Host!


We began the week with two days still in the bank of holidays allocated for the “ten ten” weekend. Monday was full-on shopping with a visit to Takashimaya in a futile attempt to find someone to fix the lock on Cassy’s briefcase that she bought in Nimes years ago. It is still perfect, except for that lock! She got some shoes re-heeled and despite some valiant attempts by the cobbler, he just couldn’t fix that lock. While we were waiting, we had salmon spaghetti for lunch at a jazzy new Italian café outside Jason’s, and then in we went to get a few “essentials” (like pies!). We zipped up to the 11th floor looking for towels, but Cassy was very disappointed in the selection, so we left that for another day. We dumped some stuff home, and then headed down to brave the night market. Lots had changed and still more had stayed the same since our last visit, but we bought some suspiciously cheap Chanel and Dior perfume, which indicated that the rogue traders are still dealing! I had to get my good watch fixed after pulling the winding mechanism clean out of its hole a while back. The little jeweler fastidiously tended to the task for a good 10 minutes before steadfastly refusing any payment whatsoever…you’ve got to love the Taiwanese! On the way home, to make sure we were just about to drop from the shop, we stopped at B&Q for a beach umbrella. It cost $8, so we aren’t expecting any great longevity!

On Tuesday, I checked the web site of the Contemporary Art Gallery and found a fascinating looking exhibition which we duly visited, this time on the scooter, late morning. There was an amazing array of art works, each more dramatic, thought provoking or zany than the last! After having our fill of out-there art, we had quite a hunger, so zipped east again to find the area of cool little eateries in the banking section near the Sheraton hotel. We looked down a few alleyways and were interested in a Tapas restaurant until we made the amazing discovery of “Doner Kebab”. The restaurant name said a bit, but apart from doners, it also had a selection of home made rolls and flat breads and deliciously roasted shish kebabs and vegetables. Cass and I declared that the food was better than any Turkish restaurant in Newcastle, a superb find that I told the Aussie/Kiwi connection about at school: some of them have already made the trip downtown!

I drove down to the 101 building and the Trade Centre next door on Thursday evening accompanied by Wal and Josh. We picked up our new boards from Alex and they looked fantastic. I was very disappointed to find a vicious ding in the deck of my board when I unwrapped it from the bubble wrap the next day: my own fault, I should have checked it at the shop. Check a picture of the boards here. We’re still enjoying some great waves: the pointyhat site has been working overtime keeping up with all the latest adventures. The link to the whole site can always be found at the top left of this page.

On Friday, we ate dinner at the famous Café India in Ker Qiang Rd, just around the corner and enjoyed some wonderful flavours and stuffed ourselves silly…we were hungry and ordered entrees, meals and various accompaniments. This was after crying off a meal at Wendel’s: we pulled up on the scooter to the sight of Oktoberfest celebrations in full swing, and we weren’t quite ready for all that festivity! I spent some time yesterday putting some gorilla grip on the board and putting the fins in along with Josh in the basement garage at school. We had a really lazy day just reading and watching a few videos and ended up taking the MRT to Beitou to visit the Royal Host restaurant. It’s a chain restaurant from Japan and has some excellent steaks and set menus. We also love to go to Beitou, about 6 stops up towards Damshui, because it negates the slightest possibility of seeing anyone from school!

Today, I went surfing and had a great time (see pointyhat)and Cassy spent lots of quality time with the “girls” who continue to live the most decadent and spoilt lifestyle(half their luck!).

tunnel fever

dave loves Toucheng!

tired but happy

big business!

east coast scenery

cassy and temple

This weekend has been just about perfect; one of those periods of time when it’s great to be alive and just vacuum up every single thing life has to offer. We’ve had blissful autumn weather with clear skies, sun and moderate temperatures. We’ve discovered new things, broken out of our comfort zones and reaped some rewards. We’ve enjoyed some wonderful meals, entertaining movies, classic surf and best of all…we’ve still got two days left!

The weekend didn’t start too well. I was recovering from a three day long headache, one I get at varying intervals, but also one I haven’t had for many months, so it surprised me a little. Sharp, jackhammering spikes of pain just blast away behind my eyeballs and temple till it becomes quite debilitating. I had Thursday off and was still pretty much a passenger on Friday. Still, Friday evening came, the pall of another week at work seemed a long way off and some wood fired pizza and Aussie Rawson’s Retreat as my self-medicated vasodilator at Pizza Rialto was just the ticket. We made our plans to investigate the opening of a new road to the tip of the north coast the following morning.

Cass played Mum and made some sangas and we packed everything in the car (including surfboard of course) for the big trek. We found the on ramp to Expressway 1 at Neihu a 20 minute drive south east of where we are. It’s like launching onto the autoroute in France; have a deep breath then just accelerate straight into it! We took the off ramp with help of a rare English sign (usually, I’m summoning all my powers of memory to read the characters, usually only partly successfully!) then had to make some snap decisions to get onto another on ramp to another elevated road. There were no signs, but we just decided to follow the traffic and that seemed to work as we were spat out on the coast on the far side of the much feared inner city streets of Keelung, where we’ve been trapped in traffic before.

To cut a long story short, we enjoyed some north coast scenery on a glorious day, found Fulong beach to be blown out and continued to the famous Dashi, or “Honeymoon Bay” on the east coast. Miraculously the wind had swung offshore and a light dusting on small waves was a pretty scene at trendy Dashi. Some entrepreneurial types had set up to photograph the local surfers (for a fee) and seemed to be doing quite a trade. The real find was down at Toucheng off the harbour wall. Ross and I had got great surf there last year, but Cass and I found a cool little scene in the streets behind the main beach: board hire, trendy little coffee shops and bars and cool people almost all of whom seemed to speak great English. The surf was just epic: 5’ peeling offshore right handers. My buddies out on the point, Robert and Tony, had driven from Taipei and said that it was not good yesterday: great, I thought, I’ve finally cracked some spot at the right time. I asked Tony how he got there and he steered us even further south to another brand new expressway. We ate our lunch at the fish co-op up the road and steeled ourselves to find the new road: not such an easy task when most of the signs are in Chinese! Once again, “follow the traffic” worked well, we got spat onto the big road, paid our $40NT toll (A$1.80) then zoomed straight into a 13 KM TUNNEL! Yes, unbelievable as it may seem, that’s what happened. It was a brand new polished tube of concrete, two lanes each way. When we emerged, it was momentary before entering a 3 km one, then out onto km after km of elevated roadway scything through the mountain county. A few more daring maneuvers saw us transfer to another two expressways before dropping back down into Neihu and home. Phew…we felt like we’d been round the world and back!

I got up early and met Josh and Dan at Jinshan this morning. The surf was OK, but we decided to chase the surf and as is often the case, wasted half an hour checking all the spots before coming right back. Jinshan was pretty good: solid left hand point waves spoiled by an onshore, but not really doing it for me after yesterday. We all got a few good ones then headed back to Tienmu. Cass and I decided to go to the pictures and bought some tickets online to see “The Departed”. I enjoy most movies we see, but this was a cracker. Scorsese at his directorial best, a cavalcade of A grade actors effortlessly plying their art, and lots of violence, intrigue, sub plots and twists: brilliant!! We tried to go to a new French patisserie/café for lunch, but due to the “ten ten” holiday, it was booked for a private function. Second choice was “Aubergine”, our favorite Japanese/Chinese/Western fusion restaurant…delicious, but we had to wolf it down in order not to miss the movie. This post is soooo long! Sorry, enough, we still have two days to go! Photos: Cass with Fulong temple in the back..it’s right on the surf beach!, photographers, east coast, great right handers at Toucheng and the tunnel!

Cass rained out

the forbidden zone!

reg


Wow! What a weekend of football fever and celebration. Because we’re overseas and away form home, I think weekends like this are celebrated even more than if we were at home. This was certainly the case as far as the AFL grand final was concerned on Saturday. Because of the time difference, we were ensconced in Josh’s house at 11 am and drinking our first beers! What a day was to follow….Reg Reagan made an appearance to extol the virtues of the real game of football and plenty of Australian beers were brought along from Jason’s. We ate pies and chicken (KFC of course!) and generally tried to be as unhealthy as possible.

The game was just fantastic: I think I partly enjoy watching the reactions of the real AFL aficionados and the general banter being thrown around. About a dozen of us were in attendance and the funniest thing was watching some of the Americans and Canadians trying to make sense of the game. Long after the game was finished and after copious amounts of beer had been drunk, it was discovered that someone had brought a pastie to the proceedings. This act apparently was seen as a slur on the manliness of others present and several “just for fun” all in brawls erupted. The just for fun brawls quickly degenerated into something approaching the real thing and the debris strewn around Josh’s place afterwards had to be seen to be believed. We all had a ball, relived our youth, stood up for our codes and then: well, we had to help clean up the mess that we’d made!
Of course, we then had to head to the Green Bar to prolong the celebrations and prolong it we certainly did.

Surprisingly, I didn’t feel too bad on Sunday morning, except for a bleeding thumb (?) and several bruised parts of my body, obviously from the day before after-game celebrations. Cass and I decided to go to the pictures, but a dearth of decent films showing saw us attend one we normally wouldn’t bother with: “World Trade Centre” Oliver Stone directed and Nicholas Cage starred, so they managed to carry it fairly well. There were some strange directorial timing issues and a little too much jingoism towards the end, but it was reasonably entertaining. We got home in time to listen to the lead up to the NRL grand final on the radio then a full coverage of the game and pre and post match entertainment on the Australia Network (the old ABC Asiapacific). One reason this blog is coming out a day late is because we were watching the game in my usual writing time slot! We enjoyed the game, but just couldn’t arouse too much passion. If I was asked at the start of the year which would be my two least desired teams to contest the grand final, it would have been these two. Suffice to say, we admired the technical abilities of the players and the teamwork in evidence, but I was the least impassioned for a grand final I have ever been. I didn’t even get the boys around this year. Bring on the Knights in 2007 is all I have to say!

Cass was a bit of a football widow this weekend, but we have the Moon festival long weekend next Monday and Tuesday, so we plan to do a few different activities and have a few more adventures then. The hiatus is on in earnest now: when does that first Ashes test start again?!
Photos: Cass with a couple of little helpers at the very soggy 8th grade camp, Virg'n Mary occasionally spy the door to our bedroom open and they're on the bed like lightning! An NRL legend stirs the pot at the AFL grand final.

fishing boats

strange applause!

park

cass and virg


Cassy had very few requests after her week at camp. “I just want to be clean and go out and eat a nice meal”. So after Cassy scrubbed off the grime of a week at Fulong on the northern tip of the island, we headed straight to Wendel’s where we enjoyed a couple of big cleansing Erdinger beers and delicious entrees and mains. It’s not that Cassy finds the whole week a real hardship: as any teacher who has ever been away on any sort of camp knows, it is so enervating being on duty 24/7 as well as being “up with people” every waking moment, with camp people, colleagues and kids. Her accommodation was adequate and as I mentioned last week, she avoided a tent night or two by doing even more work on the meals. I have to admit being a little surprised though: Cassy didn’t fade on Friday night and even stayed up till 11.30pm to see the end of the Bulldogs for season 2006.

On Saturday, we had a pretty laid back day (sorry, that should read, I had a pretty laid back day!) and even though I made a few pathetic offers of assistance, Cassy seemed to find it quite cathartic to do endless loads of washing and scrub away the last memories of her week! I watched so much TV on Saturday, I was disgusted with myself: I even got a cramp in one leg from sitting down so long! I filed my self-loathing away, ready to be addressed first thing Sunday morning: if the surf was shot, then I just had to do something! We watched some torrented Australian Idol from last Sunday and Monday in the afternoon: is it just me or are these guys supremely talented this year? Normally, I watch Australian Idol and get the odd twinge of horror as it can be like watching park cricketers instead of the test team compared to the American version, but we’re both really enjoying this series. Perhaps we are really becoming too easy to please…I don’t know!

Sunday dawned on my promise to get active, so leaving Cass for a sleep in, I packed my gear, scootered up to school, retrieved the car and made the mad winding dash to the coast. Despite sending out 5 or 6 texts to various possible starters, none took the offer up and I think they may well be disappointed now. I got to the activity centre to be greeted by big, powerful swells breaking beyond the harbour breakwater and peeling right, the odd one wedging up perfectly to allow a choice of right or left. I was in seventh heaven for a few hours, but it wasn’t quite the same being out there by myself….I can just imagine how excited Ross would have been with the fact that we had the beach to ourselves and beautiful sun, light wind and big waves. I managed to totally exhaust myself before climbing back in the car for the long haul home. I stopped and got some goodies from the Yangminshan Starbucks for a very late breakfast for us when I got home.

Clippings, tasty morsels and beautiful aromas complemented our breakfast: Cassy went mental and cleaned the house and cooked dinners AND a banana cake while I was away. I think she’s reveling in the fact that she can enter a kitchen that isn’t a rat infested putrid hole like the one she avoided eating any product from in the last 5 days! We zipped over to the Shilin Eslite bookstore to get Cassy’s new book club book: “Saturday” by Ian McEwan, then headed back over to HOLA to order some curtains. We had measured up before we left, so we could get a rough quote on the fabric we chose: wow! These curtains are pretty expensive! A couple of people are coming round tomorrow after work to measure up properly, but it will be worth it, as since the bedroom has been painted so expertly, the old Venetian blind is looking pretty shabby.

Virg’n Mary have been most excited to have Cassy back. Even though I performed all the necessary duties to look after them and they were reasonably tolerant, they never quite went overboard to gain my affections! I had some good long pats and played with them a lot, but they have followed Cassy around like little dogs for a couple of days since she’s been home.

Photos: Boats in Jinshan harbour festooned with lights for a practical purpose: to attract squid. These boats are moored in the very harbour next to the activity centre beach, where the big surf was today. Another photo is a group of young people from some hinterland who must never have seen the ocean before: they were ooohing and aahhing every time a wave came close and quite embarrassingly, to a person, applauded my exit from the water after my last wave! I get mobbed by some of my 3rd graders in the park and Virgy gets her tummy brushed!

typhoon shower

Cass and the girls

Josh, the master and Wal

I went down to the World Trade Centre on Thursday afternoon with Josh and Wal to order a new board. We met up with our contact, Alex, explained what we wanted, ordered the boards and left knowing it will be at least 4 weeks before they are ready.
We stopped in for a couple of beers at the Tavern on the way home, which subsequently led to a few more at the Brass Monkey before we got home to Tienmu, so Wal and I had to pull out every team teaching trick in the book on Friday morning! We were fine after a while, but a bit slow for the first couple of hours!

Cass is off to camp tomorrow, so she’s been busy packing and getting ready today. Typhoon Shanshan has been slowly tracking up the east coast of Taiwan for a week or so and the rain I mentioned last week has only slowed for a few brief moments. It looks like it is finally heading away, which Cassy is very relieved about, as her 5-day camp is not known for its level of luxury! She has managed to score a cabin for all the nights, which is a relief and will avoid the tents as she has volunteered to get up and prepare breakfasts each morning. She has all her stuff prepared for other activities she usually does and still pays a certain amount of homage to the old peer support stuff we did at Grammar. Apparently, some of it can still a pretty good job of entertaining the grade 8s over here, so why not?

Mr. Lee finally arranged someone to come in and re-paint our bedroom through the week after another letter politely asking when this might happen! The outside wall had leaked in a typhoon last year and our walls had become wet, the paint blistering, powdering up and generally trying to fall off the wall. It looks great now, and we took the opportunity to get the wall hanging Chad and Cathy had given us years ago a dry clean. When this gets back, we’ll have our room back to normal, new and fresh.

I’ve surfed both today and yesterday in the typhoon swell, trying to 1. find a spot slightly sheltered from gale force winds, 2. with a half decent wave and, 3. away from the prying eyes of the coast guard, who issue quite a hefty on-the –spot fine if you go into the ocean when the coast has been closed. Ross and I played the dumb foreigner once a couple of years ago, but I don’t know if you could get away with that these days. Anyway, suffice to say, we got a pretty good surf, met our mystical pointyhat master (!) and had a good laugh. I gave Carl a ring quite late just before we went out today, but he was out on the bike track somewhere.

Photos today: Cass says hi to the girls in the octagon (sharing even in 30 degree heat!!), I use the famous “high pressure shower” in the typhoon wind and Josh and Wal meet up with our Pointyhat “Master”.

non stop rain