Monday, October 30, 2006
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.
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.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
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.
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.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
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!).
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!).
Sunday, October 08, 2006
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!
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!
Monday, October 02, 2006
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.
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.
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