There are two reasons this blog will be the very shortest I have written for years. Firstly, we're on holidays and that usually means I take a break from writing this tome, as much as I love it(!) The second and more pertinent reason is that my new computer on steroids has attracted a virus of similar gargantuan strength. In the space of an hour it got worse and worse until finally there were so many error messages and unannounced shutdowns that I turned it off and gave up! My computer man is on Chinese New Year holidays as is nearly every other person here in Taipei, so I'm writing this from school. I spent most of today at school doing some uni work, a most unusual pastime for me in a week off. It is anathema for me to grace the corridors of the school with my presence in a break, but circumstances demanded it. You will hopefully enjoy our new feature here on the blog of some video. Virg'n Mary are the sleepy subjects relaxing in the sun in our first experimental version...you might have to wait a few minutes for it to load.
We've had a lovely break so far and had a great meal out with Ross and Ains last night and saw "Syriana" at Warner Village. Well, that's it for now, enjoy the little video and wish us luck getting our computer back online....we're missing our link to the world already and have to watch that cricket on Friday!!!
Sunday, January 22, 2006
squirrel with hot chip
Hurtling into my top 10 films of all time with a flaming bullet comes “Brokeback Mountain”. This atmospheric, beautifully filmed, sublimely acted film just had everything we could possibly want. The two lead actors were faultless and the supporting cast was nearly as good. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many moments in one film where a facial close up has conveyed a gamut of emotions so subtly and with unnerving explicitness. Some of the scenes near the end of the film are, in particular, just heart wrenching: the character played by Heath Ledger displays a palpable grief unlike anything else I’ve ever seen on film. Understated brilliance and visually splendid as well…. what a treat for us yesterday after a run of just average films lately.
In a zone of contemplation after the film we spent an hour or so having an early tea/late lunch at Chili’s and the food was delicious as usual. After that, we wandered down to the basement level and walked around the electronic store, FNAC, which has all the latest and greatest gear and is always fun to have a look. I’d been out to the Pillbox in the early morning, but a combination of strong wind, rain and bitter temperatures did not make the surf very appealing and we traveled back without going out. Ross and I were both disappointed as the 6 o’clock run had worked out really well last week.
Anyway, I was a bit tired after the early morning rising (come on, it is the weekend!) so no doubt I channeled Dad’s spirit and fell asleep in front of the telly on the lounge snoring. In fact, I’ve noticed that I’ve been suffering some allergies here lately, which produce a sudden and explosive sneeze a la Dad. This sneeze has the ability to frighten anyone nearby and reduce small children to tears and flighty cats to run for their lives. This has not been real good for me in my job with the little kiddies and my domestic situation with very nervous cats….. Dad would be proud!
We had a lovely surprise last week when we checked our mailbox at school. Not only did we get two more installments of our Herald clippings from Mum that kept our breakfasts long and enjoyable on the weekend (thanks Mum!), but also we had a large brown paper package of some mystery in the box. It turned out to be a wonderful surprise present from my aunty and uncle of two novels, perfectly chosen, “Teacher Man” by Frank McCourt for me and the latest Minette Walters for Cassy. Not doubt a swap will happen later as well! It’s such a thrill when we get stuff in the mail…Mum’s regular packages always gives us a buzz and Cass gets a House magazine from Australia each month by subscription. Blair sent us some famous Hawaiian toffees just before Christmas and we get the odd postcard as well.
Last of the Sri Lanka shots we’ll inflict on you today..Cassy insisted I include a shot of one of the many cute little squirrels running around pool deck, this one with a chip. We can’t recommend “Brokeback Mountain” more highly: do yourself a favour and all that………………
Hurtling into my top 10 films of all time with a flaming bullet comes “Brokeback Mountain”. This atmospheric, beautifully filmed, sublimely acted film just had everything we could possibly want. The two lead actors were faultless and the supporting cast was nearly as good. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many moments in one film where a facial close up has conveyed a gamut of emotions so subtly and with unnerving explicitness. Some of the scenes near the end of the film are, in particular, just heart wrenching: the character played by Heath Ledger displays a palpable grief unlike anything else I’ve ever seen on film. Understated brilliance and visually splendid as well…. what a treat for us yesterday after a run of just average films lately.
In a zone of contemplation after the film we spent an hour or so having an early tea/late lunch at Chili’s and the food was delicious as usual. After that, we wandered down to the basement level and walked around the electronic store, FNAC, which has all the latest and greatest gear and is always fun to have a look. I’d been out to the Pillbox in the early morning, but a combination of strong wind, rain and bitter temperatures did not make the surf very appealing and we traveled back without going out. Ross and I were both disappointed as the 6 o’clock run had worked out really well last week.
Anyway, I was a bit tired after the early morning rising (come on, it is the weekend!) so no doubt I channeled Dad’s spirit and fell asleep in front of the telly on the lounge snoring. In fact, I’ve noticed that I’ve been suffering some allergies here lately, which produce a sudden and explosive sneeze a la Dad. This sneeze has the ability to frighten anyone nearby and reduce small children to tears and flighty cats to run for their lives. This has not been real good for me in my job with the little kiddies and my domestic situation with very nervous cats….. Dad would be proud!
We had a lovely surprise last week when we checked our mailbox at school. Not only did we get two more installments of our Herald clippings from Mum that kept our breakfasts long and enjoyable on the weekend (thanks Mum!), but also we had a large brown paper package of some mystery in the box. It turned out to be a wonderful surprise present from my aunty and uncle of two novels, perfectly chosen, “Teacher Man” by Frank McCourt for me and the latest Minette Walters for Cassy. Not doubt a swap will happen later as well! It’s such a thrill when we get stuff in the mail…Mum’s regular packages always gives us a buzz and Cass gets a House magazine from Australia each month by subscription. Blair sent us some famous Hawaiian toffees just before Christmas and we get the odd postcard as well.
Last of the Sri Lanka shots we’ll inflict on you today..Cassy insisted I include a shot of one of the many cute little squirrels running around pool deck, this one with a chip. We can’t recommend “Brokeback Mountain” more highly: do yourself a favour and all that………………
Monday, January 16, 2006
Cassy's usual spot!
It’s the start of the second week back at work and the relaxed feelings we began with last week are slowly fading. There’s just enough “chill” lingering to make some of those quirky work thingies seem very far from important. Lots of people have asked about our holiday and seem quite fascinated with the whole deal, being that little bit further afield from the usual holiday destinations here in Asia. The boys have enjoyed seeing the little videos of the surf as that’s given quite a good idea of what it was like.
Ross and I made an ill-advised trip to the surf here last Monday, but we decided to go very early on Saturday morning to get the best of the conditions. This tactic seemed to work as the waves were quite presentable and we had a very enjoyable surf.
The night before had provided us with another first here in Taipei and that was watching the one day cricket! Much to my surprise, I eventually found a site that would stream the cricket over the internet. Frequent readers of this blog will recall that I had searched for a long while for this service and had many upgrades done on the computer to support it to the maximum degree possible. Suffice to say, I had crossed every hurdle but the last one, when the American site refused to let me buy a package. They were not authorized to sell to Asia and there was no hiding the IP address of the computer. Half way through the 1st game and feeling very annoyed as the game began to unfold without an opportunity to watch it, we found an English site which will stream the VB series at 10 pounds a pop ($23 A!!). The system worked beautifully on Friday night and we loved seeing the Aussies beat the Sri Lankans (even though we have more than a soft spot for the Sri Lankans now!) and I was able to wirelessly beam the video and the sound from the computer through to the TV in the other room. Sunday’s game proved to be very frustrating however! No matter how ramped up your computer is, or how fast your connection (ours is 3M now), if there are lots of other users, it will slow down the stream. Sunday afternoon and evening is prime time for internet use and although the audio streamed beautifully, the video broke up into a quick succession of still shots. It was so frustrating! Anyway, we’ve decided to just target the games on weekdays from now on. We’ll miss heaps as they start at 11.30 Taipei time while we’re at work, but we’ll catch a few hours after work.
Don’t take your cricket for granted please! $23 a game, picture pixilated and cutting in and out, Sky Sports from England putting their own ads in, but mercifully, taking the Australian commentary. You know, I’ve often said that if they had the cricket here, I wouldn’t need to come home: however, it will have to improve a lot before I want to take out citizenship!!
Both Cass and I are very tired being back at work after a couple of weeks of late breakfasts, sun lounges, beaches, pools, curries, seafood and lots of sleeping. We celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary today and we had a very scrumptious dinner at Wendel’s on Saturday night as tonight we had meetings and a very romantic date with the garbage truck! (That’s another thing you shouldn’t take for granted…lugging heavy bags of foul smelling detritus to the next block, waiting with your neighbours and then slinging it into the back of a truck very quickly loses its appeal!)
I said to Cass as we left for work this morning, “Who would have thought 18 years ago that we’d be here planted in Taipei in 2006? You probably wouldn’t have married me!”
What do you think?!
It’s the start of the second week back at work and the relaxed feelings we began with last week are slowly fading. There’s just enough “chill” lingering to make some of those quirky work thingies seem very far from important. Lots of people have asked about our holiday and seem quite fascinated with the whole deal, being that little bit further afield from the usual holiday destinations here in Asia. The boys have enjoyed seeing the little videos of the surf as that’s given quite a good idea of what it was like.
Ross and I made an ill-advised trip to the surf here last Monday, but we decided to go very early on Saturday morning to get the best of the conditions. This tactic seemed to work as the waves were quite presentable and we had a very enjoyable surf.
The night before had provided us with another first here in Taipei and that was watching the one day cricket! Much to my surprise, I eventually found a site that would stream the cricket over the internet. Frequent readers of this blog will recall that I had searched for a long while for this service and had many upgrades done on the computer to support it to the maximum degree possible. Suffice to say, I had crossed every hurdle but the last one, when the American site refused to let me buy a package. They were not authorized to sell to Asia and there was no hiding the IP address of the computer. Half way through the 1st game and feeling very annoyed as the game began to unfold without an opportunity to watch it, we found an English site which will stream the VB series at 10 pounds a pop ($23 A!!). The system worked beautifully on Friday night and we loved seeing the Aussies beat the Sri Lankans (even though we have more than a soft spot for the Sri Lankans now!) and I was able to wirelessly beam the video and the sound from the computer through to the TV in the other room. Sunday’s game proved to be very frustrating however! No matter how ramped up your computer is, or how fast your connection (ours is 3M now), if there are lots of other users, it will slow down the stream. Sunday afternoon and evening is prime time for internet use and although the audio streamed beautifully, the video broke up into a quick succession of still shots. It was so frustrating! Anyway, we’ve decided to just target the games on weekdays from now on. We’ll miss heaps as they start at 11.30 Taipei time while we’re at work, but we’ll catch a few hours after work.
Don’t take your cricket for granted please! $23 a game, picture pixilated and cutting in and out, Sky Sports from England putting their own ads in, but mercifully, taking the Australian commentary. You know, I’ve often said that if they had the cricket here, I wouldn’t need to come home: however, it will have to improve a lot before I want to take out citizenship!!
Both Cass and I are very tired being back at work after a couple of weeks of late breakfasts, sun lounges, beaches, pools, curries, seafood and lots of sleeping. We celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary today and we had a very scrumptious dinner at Wendel’s on Saturday night as tonight we had meetings and a very romantic date with the garbage truck! (That’s another thing you shouldn’t take for granted…lugging heavy bags of foul smelling detritus to the next block, waiting with your neighbours and then slinging it into the back of a truck very quickly loses its appeal!)
I said to Cass as we left for work this morning, “Who would have thought 18 years ago that we’d be here planted in Taipei in 2006? You probably wouldn’t have married me!”
What do you think?!
Sunday, January 08, 2006
beach "girls" selling fabric
Plane hopping from Taipei to HK to Singapore and then Colombo was tiring, but couldn’t compare with the ride from the airport to Hikkaduwa. Our driver was late by about an hour and then we drove 3 hours on what seemed like a dog track down south. I later found out that it was the Galle road, the main link to the south of the country. But a little pain was replaced with a whole lot of gain the next morning when we awoke to 30 degree dry heat, brilliant sunshine and crystal clear ocean waves crashing just metres from our hotel balcony. These conditions remained the same for the next 14 days as we ate (too much), drank (not so much!) swam and surfed (about the right amount) and read and shopped in appropriate measure. Sri Lanka is certainly a very different destination: at times heart wrenchingly poor, achingly beautiful at dawn and dusk and most times in between and populated by a people so upbeat and friendly despite the devastation inflicted upon them and the circumstances of their numbers which keep most of them poorer than we can possibly imagine.
We had such a wonderful time; we have already begun to figure out ways to go back soon. We met the most friendly local people possible, from our semi adopted hotel staffer, Senna, the boy at Buddee’s restaurant, Lassa, to Sarath the car driver, Nibame our tuk tuk man and Cassy’s dressmaking girl. While we walked around almost in a constant state of guilt for having any money at all, they all seemed eternally grateful that we had decided to come to their country and spend some of it! The Sri Lankan people are a kind hearted, happy, family orientated people who seem very content. We refused to haggle at all and paid whatever price was suggested first and usually more…it just didn’t seem like a game to us. I bought some board shorts and Cass got some beautiful silk clothing, some made for her by a dressmaker. I have two belts exactly the same for some reason (see picture) possibly because the stallholder seemed so excited to see us! We bought a few little trinkets and Cass also bought some earrings and a bracelet of moonstones from the mine that we visited.
The surf, (please see Pointyhat for pictures and details) was sublime. The “A-frame” at Hikkaduwa was just 100 metres up the beach from our hotel and provided consistent, mechanical and just about perfect waves for the 2 weeks we were there. Giant turtles and colourful fish swam below us as we waited and we could easily see the reef below. The wave itself had a relatively small take off area and then went both ways, the left being a little slower and breaking over just a touch more water. The crowd was at times quite large and I reluctantly had to hustle a bit for waves. I’ve got used to avoiding the crowds over here in Taiwan, but if you wanted to surf the good stuff there, you had to get in amongst it. The crowd was friendly, partly I suspect because few people knew what the others were saying to each other! There were German, English, Japanese, Australian, South African, Spanish, French and Sri Lankan surfers out there all talking different languages. The Pommies weren’t making much sense of the Aussies and the universal English was so heavily accented as to be ineffective anyway. Luckily, nearly everyone abided by the “international rules” and there was no great controversy. I was excited to be at a world class break again, as it has been many years since our last trip to Angourie, and it was the first time I’ve surfed at one of the fabled reef breaks. The coral was visible at a very shallow depth on some waves…I didn’t think I’d ever curse crystal clear water, but it looked just sooo close! Luckily I escaped unscathed despite taking my fair share of wipeouts in the zone.
Will write more next week after we’ve had a chance to synthesize some more of what we saw and did over there. Suffice to say, it was a learning time for us to see such abject poverty (if you’ve seen the shanties in Kenya near the train tracks as in the “Constant Gardener”, they look pristine compared to some sights we saw outside Colombo) coupled with incredible beauty and an amazing upbeat attitude to life. A great lesson……….
Plane hopping from Taipei to HK to Singapore and then Colombo was tiring, but couldn’t compare with the ride from the airport to Hikkaduwa. Our driver was late by about an hour and then we drove 3 hours on what seemed like a dog track down south. I later found out that it was the Galle road, the main link to the south of the country. But a little pain was replaced with a whole lot of gain the next morning when we awoke to 30 degree dry heat, brilliant sunshine and crystal clear ocean waves crashing just metres from our hotel balcony. These conditions remained the same for the next 14 days as we ate (too much), drank (not so much!) swam and surfed (about the right amount) and read and shopped in appropriate measure. Sri Lanka is certainly a very different destination: at times heart wrenchingly poor, achingly beautiful at dawn and dusk and most times in between and populated by a people so upbeat and friendly despite the devastation inflicted upon them and the circumstances of their numbers which keep most of them poorer than we can possibly imagine.
We had such a wonderful time; we have already begun to figure out ways to go back soon. We met the most friendly local people possible, from our semi adopted hotel staffer, Senna, the boy at Buddee’s restaurant, Lassa, to Sarath the car driver, Nibame our tuk tuk man and Cassy’s dressmaking girl. While we walked around almost in a constant state of guilt for having any money at all, they all seemed eternally grateful that we had decided to come to their country and spend some of it! The Sri Lankan people are a kind hearted, happy, family orientated people who seem very content. We refused to haggle at all and paid whatever price was suggested first and usually more…it just didn’t seem like a game to us. I bought some board shorts and Cass got some beautiful silk clothing, some made for her by a dressmaker. I have two belts exactly the same for some reason (see picture) possibly because the stallholder seemed so excited to see us! We bought a few little trinkets and Cass also bought some earrings and a bracelet of moonstones from the mine that we visited.
The surf, (please see Pointyhat for pictures and details) was sublime. The “A-frame” at Hikkaduwa was just 100 metres up the beach from our hotel and provided consistent, mechanical and just about perfect waves for the 2 weeks we were there. Giant turtles and colourful fish swam below us as we waited and we could easily see the reef below. The wave itself had a relatively small take off area and then went both ways, the left being a little slower and breaking over just a touch more water. The crowd was at times quite large and I reluctantly had to hustle a bit for waves. I’ve got used to avoiding the crowds over here in Taiwan, but if you wanted to surf the good stuff there, you had to get in amongst it. The crowd was friendly, partly I suspect because few people knew what the others were saying to each other! There were German, English, Japanese, Australian, South African, Spanish, French and Sri Lankan surfers out there all talking different languages. The Pommies weren’t making much sense of the Aussies and the universal English was so heavily accented as to be ineffective anyway. Luckily, nearly everyone abided by the “international rules” and there was no great controversy. I was excited to be at a world class break again, as it has been many years since our last trip to Angourie, and it was the first time I’ve surfed at one of the fabled reef breaks. The coral was visible at a very shallow depth on some waves…I didn’t think I’d ever curse crystal clear water, but it looked just sooo close! Luckily I escaped unscathed despite taking my fair share of wipeouts in the zone.
Will write more next week after we’ve had a chance to synthesize some more of what we saw and did over there. Suffice to say, it was a learning time for us to see such abject poverty (if you’ve seen the shanties in Kenya near the train tracks as in the “Constant Gardener”, they look pristine compared to some sights we saw outside Colombo) coupled with incredible beauty and an amazing upbeat attitude to life. A great lesson……….
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