Sunday, September 24, 2006
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!
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!
Sunday, September 17, 2006
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”.
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”.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
yawn and bath
11pm was kickoff time for the Knights on Friday night after the Australianetwork, in their wisdom, decided to delay the NRL telecast in favour of the AFL one. We were excited, dispirited, hopeful then ecstatic in turns as we rode the emotion of the game as fortunes ebbed and flowed. I found myself jumping around the loungeroom at 1 in the morning as the Knights ground out a very gutsy win.
Incessant rain has pounded Taipei city for days and days. In the short windows between the dumps, people scurry out getting their business done as quickly as possible. Even the short breaks have disappeared now: it has been raining torrentially for nearly 24 hours and the 7 day forecast indicates rain, storms, downpours and wind will continue to lash the city.
Josh and I did some boxing training at the school gym on Saturday morning and ran into Aaron and Johnsy, who were there in their official capacities as officials at a volleyball tournament. The upper and lower gyms were abuzz with kids and coaches from lots of Asian schools visiting for the tournament. Shouts of encouragement, whistles and cheers provided a different background to the one we’re used to: usually we’re the only ones in there! Today, I’m nursing a severely bruised arm from an errant punch delivered by mistake yesterday…oh well, can’t expect to escape completely free of injury practicing such pursuits. I’d booked some tickets to the pictures online and picked them up before we boxed and subsequently dashed home to pick Cassy up so we could get there on time. Mercifully, the rain held off long enough for us to get there. “The Wicker Man” was quite a silly film really, but Nicholas Cage is always pretty good, so it kept us vaguely entertained. We had a late lunch at Chili’s before making it home to watch the football; languid, fat drops of rain plopping on our heads ominously as we got close to home. The rain started then and, well, it’s still going now!!
Lewy and Marcus and Gerry formed a southern Australian connection to watch the AFL semi at Josh’s place and I puttered the scooter through the rain up there last night. We had a few beers, pies, KFC and enjoyed some good banter, although I felt slightly left out: the AFL talk was a bit beyond my comprehension, especially when they started talking about stars of the 70s and so and so’s father’s cousin etc. Still, it was a good night and we stuck around to watch the rugby with Australia and South Africa and then the NRL semi featuring the Bulldogs and Canberra…whew: too much football is never enough.
Sunday has been a wet, miserable day, but we’ve stayed safe in our little cocoon here. Cassy discovered we had just enough to eat so we didn’t need to brave the outside to visit the shops, so we’ve just hunkered down. We’ve read and marked papers (Cassy) and watched football and videos (David)! The surf was blown today and yesterday, the Pillbox beckoned, but the wind was just too strong for it to produce anything rideable. I’ve designed a new “pointyhat” logo on Publisher and intend to order a new board this week to replace the fish that I took home in June. I’ve managed to insert a little pointyhat into the logo, and it even features some cross hatched yellow lines, so it looks pretty authentic.
I asked Cassy if she wanted to report anything and she said, “Go the Knights!” and “If it doesn’t stop raining soon I’m going to go insane!” I couldn’t agree more. Photos: an attempt to capture the teeming rain from our balcony, Virg yawns, Mary looks very wary!
11pm was kickoff time for the Knights on Friday night after the Australianetwork, in their wisdom, decided to delay the NRL telecast in favour of the AFL one. We were excited, dispirited, hopeful then ecstatic in turns as we rode the emotion of the game as fortunes ebbed and flowed. I found myself jumping around the loungeroom at 1 in the morning as the Knights ground out a very gutsy win.
Incessant rain has pounded Taipei city for days and days. In the short windows between the dumps, people scurry out getting their business done as quickly as possible. Even the short breaks have disappeared now: it has been raining torrentially for nearly 24 hours and the 7 day forecast indicates rain, storms, downpours and wind will continue to lash the city.
Josh and I did some boxing training at the school gym on Saturday morning and ran into Aaron and Johnsy, who were there in their official capacities as officials at a volleyball tournament. The upper and lower gyms were abuzz with kids and coaches from lots of Asian schools visiting for the tournament. Shouts of encouragement, whistles and cheers provided a different background to the one we’re used to: usually we’re the only ones in there! Today, I’m nursing a severely bruised arm from an errant punch delivered by mistake yesterday…oh well, can’t expect to escape completely free of injury practicing such pursuits. I’d booked some tickets to the pictures online and picked them up before we boxed and subsequently dashed home to pick Cassy up so we could get there on time. Mercifully, the rain held off long enough for us to get there. “The Wicker Man” was quite a silly film really, but Nicholas Cage is always pretty good, so it kept us vaguely entertained. We had a late lunch at Chili’s before making it home to watch the football; languid, fat drops of rain plopping on our heads ominously as we got close to home. The rain started then and, well, it’s still going now!!
Lewy and Marcus and Gerry formed a southern Australian connection to watch the AFL semi at Josh’s place and I puttered the scooter through the rain up there last night. We had a few beers, pies, KFC and enjoyed some good banter, although I felt slightly left out: the AFL talk was a bit beyond my comprehension, especially when they started talking about stars of the 70s and so and so’s father’s cousin etc. Still, it was a good night and we stuck around to watch the rugby with Australia and South Africa and then the NRL semi featuring the Bulldogs and Canberra…whew: too much football is never enough.
Sunday has been a wet, miserable day, but we’ve stayed safe in our little cocoon here. Cassy discovered we had just enough to eat so we didn’t need to brave the outside to visit the shops, so we’ve just hunkered down. We’ve read and marked papers (Cassy) and watched football and videos (David)! The surf was blown today and yesterday, the Pillbox beckoned, but the wind was just too strong for it to produce anything rideable. I’ve designed a new “pointyhat” logo on Publisher and intend to order a new board this week to replace the fish that I took home in June. I’ve managed to insert a little pointyhat into the logo, and it even features some cross hatched yellow lines, so it looks pretty authentic.
I asked Cassy if she wanted to report anything and she said, “Go the Knights!” and “If it doesn’t stop raining soon I’m going to go insane!” I couldn’t agree more. Photos: an attempt to capture the teeming rain from our balcony, Virg yawns, Mary looks very wary!
Sunday, September 03, 2006
virg'n mary relaxing
Go the Knights! Stoked this evening to hear the Knights are to face off against arch rivals, Manly, next Friday night. What is even better is the knowledge that Australianetwork TV (the old ABC Asia Pacific) will broadcast the Friday semi live. Cass is a bit upset as her book club has arranged a meeting on Friday night, so she’s in a bit of a dilemma: apparently these strange hoity toity yanks she hangs around with don’t understand the rugby league religion…imagine that!!
We’ve had a really enjoyable weekend on the back of a pretty good week. My second last parent presentation went very well mid-week and Cass had a professional development day where she found out the results of last year’s standardized writing tests. Her kids, including Sean Lochrin, went extremely well, so the vintage Moet, which was produced for a celebratory tipple on Friday, tasted even sweeter than usual. I donned the boxing gloves after classes and hit the heavy bag for an hour or so in the afternoon, feeling very pleased with myself. Poor Cassy had to come home from that day and go straight back out to do a dance duty, but she has now done her duty for the years it’s over and done with. When she got home, we watched some torrented Australian Idol (which we’re really enjoying), before a relatively early night.
Saturday saw our usual, long relaxed breakfast…pancakes and proper coffee, Herald clippings and looking forlornly at the various cameras that we access to show the surf out on the northern coast. Dead flat! Carl was suffering in the tremendously enervating weather we’ve been experiencing lately as he coached his junior girl’s soccer team, before watching both boys play in separate games. He is quite excited today as he has ordered a new bike: he is right into it at the moment and regularly goes out on long rides, so he’ll be chuffed to be riding a newer model. We decided to take the car over to the big B&Q and Hola outlets in Shilin (the equivalent of Bunnings warehouse and Domayne) to scout out some material for new bedroom curtains and to get a container and possibly a high-pressure water sprayer for the car. (Disclaimer: Ross, if you’re reading this, try to contain yourself…I have bought the sprayer, a la Tobes, and it works very effectively!) We got the stuff for the car… the sprayer mentioned is to have a little shower and wash the feet off at some of the beaches we go to with very primitive facilities and I must say that it is very civilized indeed! The curtain fabric we were after (to match the lounge room) is not there any more, but when we’re ready there are other suitable ones.
We raced over relatively early to the beach this morning as I spied a couple of small swells coming through via the cams, got a Subway (actually a “Subber”, Taiwan’s own strange copy!) to take with us in lieu of brekky and made it over to get a few nice little waves. I had to work pretty hard, but it was OK and Cass and I both had a refreshing loll around in the water. On the way, we drove through the busy as a beehive weekend market at Jinshan downtown and Cass hopped out and bought two new “Pointy hats” from a bemused shopkeeper! I’m pretty sure only the local farmers, peasants (!) or road workers wear them, but they are so practical in this blazing heat. We checked out the activity centre (see photo), but it was really flat and they seem to be demanding money to use it during the summer months. It is anathema for us to pay to use a beach so we drove up the road to Jinshan “number 2”.
Cass is cooking up some salmon mornay as I write, so the weekend is going to finish off in quite a delicious manner…that’s all for now!
Go the Knights! Stoked this evening to hear the Knights are to face off against arch rivals, Manly, next Friday night. What is even better is the knowledge that Australianetwork TV (the old ABC Asia Pacific) will broadcast the Friday semi live. Cass is a bit upset as her book club has arranged a meeting on Friday night, so she’s in a bit of a dilemma: apparently these strange hoity toity yanks she hangs around with don’t understand the rugby league religion…imagine that!!
We’ve had a really enjoyable weekend on the back of a pretty good week. My second last parent presentation went very well mid-week and Cass had a professional development day where she found out the results of last year’s standardized writing tests. Her kids, including Sean Lochrin, went extremely well, so the vintage Moet, which was produced for a celebratory tipple on Friday, tasted even sweeter than usual. I donned the boxing gloves after classes and hit the heavy bag for an hour or so in the afternoon, feeling very pleased with myself. Poor Cassy had to come home from that day and go straight back out to do a dance duty, but she has now done her duty for the years it’s over and done with. When she got home, we watched some torrented Australian Idol (which we’re really enjoying), before a relatively early night.
Saturday saw our usual, long relaxed breakfast…pancakes and proper coffee, Herald clippings and looking forlornly at the various cameras that we access to show the surf out on the northern coast. Dead flat! Carl was suffering in the tremendously enervating weather we’ve been experiencing lately as he coached his junior girl’s soccer team, before watching both boys play in separate games. He is quite excited today as he has ordered a new bike: he is right into it at the moment and regularly goes out on long rides, so he’ll be chuffed to be riding a newer model. We decided to take the car over to the big B&Q and Hola outlets in Shilin (the equivalent of Bunnings warehouse and Domayne) to scout out some material for new bedroom curtains and to get a container and possibly a high-pressure water sprayer for the car. (Disclaimer: Ross, if you’re reading this, try to contain yourself…I have bought the sprayer, a la Tobes, and it works very effectively!) We got the stuff for the car… the sprayer mentioned is to have a little shower and wash the feet off at some of the beaches we go to with very primitive facilities and I must say that it is very civilized indeed! The curtain fabric we were after (to match the lounge room) is not there any more, but when we’re ready there are other suitable ones.
We raced over relatively early to the beach this morning as I spied a couple of small swells coming through via the cams, got a Subway (actually a “Subber”, Taiwan’s own strange copy!) to take with us in lieu of brekky and made it over to get a few nice little waves. I had to work pretty hard, but it was OK and Cass and I both had a refreshing loll around in the water. On the way, we drove through the busy as a beehive weekend market at Jinshan downtown and Cass hopped out and bought two new “Pointy hats” from a bemused shopkeeper! I’m pretty sure only the local farmers, peasants (!) or road workers wear them, but they are so practical in this blazing heat. We checked out the activity centre (see photo), but it was really flat and they seem to be demanding money to use it during the summer months. It is anathema for us to pay to use a beach so we drove up the road to Jinshan “number 2”.
Cass is cooking up some salmon mornay as I write, so the weekend is going to finish off in quite a delicious manner…that’s all for now!
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