Our Chinese New Year break has been a very relaxing one. Taipei city pretty much shuts down for this week, shops and restaurants closed and just a few supermarkets, convenience stores and places like movie theatres and Starbucks stay open throughout. Most inconveniently, as I mentioned last week, our computer was struck down by some kind of power virus, necessitating all sorts of “old fashioned” entertainment!
Instead of spending hours online doing who knows what, I’ve spent the equivalent time doing all sorts of other things, like reading the clippings Mum regularly sends, reading some great novels I haven’t got around to and doing another 3 courses in my ongoing credit point hunt. Cassy has read books and spent lots of time “homemaking”, doing lots of little jobs around the house that we’ve neglected because of work demands. We came into school (!) much against our usual rules, to watch some one day cricket through the week. Literally hours before the big computer crash, I subscribed to the rest of the cricket series: great timing! As it turns out, we were unable to watch yesterday’s game anyway, owing to some kind of contractual problem with the web site. I don’t know if they’ll resolve it before the finals, but we’ll get a refund if they don’t broadcast.
We took the scooter up some back roads to Yangminshan a couple of days in a row as the smog lifted, the sun came out and it was positively summery. Chinese New Year is usually bitterly cold, but we only had a couple of frigid days. On our mountain trips, we just had light clothes on and really enjoyed winding our way up and up and up a beautiful road with great views over the city. The road ended near the top of one peak and was a dead end, so the traffic was very light. We took some sandwiches and water and found a lovely little spot with a big flat rock to sit on as we gazed out from the sheer drop to the city spread out below. I went surfing with Ross and Carl a few times, but until yesterday, it wasn’t much. We had new boards, so we were keen to give them a good test and it wasn’t until yesterday that we got a good day. As usual, you can check Pointyhat for all the latest surfing news.
I had a few drinks with the usual suspects mid week and we went to Chilis with Ross and Ains and went to the Moroccan restaurant with Carl and Hiroko. We went to see “Syriana” which was quite thought provoking and a little depressing. I’ve downloaded the entire first series of “House” as well, so we’ll have plenty to watch at home. We saw the first few episodes back home in July and loved it, so we can continue the series here.
It’s a fact that we’re never inundated with email, but if you feel the urge to write, we’d hate to miss it! Until the computer is fixed at home please use my last name followed by “d” and then @tas.edu.tw . This should get to us with no problems.
Photos are of our trip to the mountains. The winding mountain road and the view over the city are featured along with a “greenery shot” where we trekked up into the mountains to see where the trail led: nowhere much as it turned out!