When you live and work in a country, it’s easy to become neglectful of it, bypass its charms and always seek “greener pastures”. This is partly why we always do our Harley trip away in the winter: we’ve become so much more attuned to the little (and bigger) serves of beauty and interest that Australia has to offer since we’ve been away. Until now, Taiwan has been a place to escape from. Even though we know this sprawling metropolis, Taipei, better than Newcastle these days and we’ve explored more than our fair share of the northern and north east coasts, we’d never really scratched the surface of this place. Well, suffice to say, we have now! We’ve just returned from a 9 day circumnavigation of the island, crossing it 2 and a half times as well, and we are in awe of the beauty and the rich differences in climate, topography, vegetation and lifestyles of the people we met and saw along the way. I’ll write about it in two parts, the mid and the west and the south, then later, the east. This trip has rocketed right up into our top trips ever with a bullet!

After our hectic end of semester, a half day at the death enabled us to get home and pack, fix everything up for the girls etc. so we could get going in the morning. We set out after breakfast, determined to keep only to a vague timetable which would enable us to do everything we wanted, without exhausting us: after all, it was a holiday. Down the expressway for a couple of hours to Taiwan’s premier wood carving/selling village of Sanyi. We explored an endless array of shops, all displaying a dizzying array of wood carvings great and small, tasteful and awfully “style free” gigantic Buddhas and dragons! It was a real buzz, topped off with a traditional Hakka meal, our pledge to get in and try whatever foods were around paying off first time with delicious meals of steamed fish and mountain vegetables. The off to the romantic ruins of the Longdeng mountain train bridge, which semi-collapsed in the great Hsinchu earthquake of 1928. My Chinese was already working overtime as I disturbed some villagers playing mahjong and asked if we were heading inn the right direction. They were excited to indicate that we were! It was a special sight, huge chunks of bridge lying beneath still solid pillars as the forest slowly but surely reclaimed the spot from the steam trains that used to ply the route. Onward to Sun Moon Lake!

One of Taiwan’s premier destinations, we arrived with the dusk and found a brand new, yet miniscule room at a hotel in the main strip. The car safely secreted at a public park down the road, we savoured a Starbuck’s and gazed out at approaching night across the lake. It was spectacular and beyond our expectations. Real Chinese meal in the main street for tea and the first of a few Hang pao chickens for me. The next day, we hiked around the foreshore for a few hours and up the hill till we boldly investigated Taiwan’s only 6 star resort hotel, The Lalu, which was an amazing edifice. The only drawback from this the certainty that we’ll be going back to stay here at some stage after Cassy got a good look at the place! After a morning at the beautiful, really beautiful lake, we had planned to head away from the foothills and cross the western industrial plain via small roads and three different expressways to Cigu.

First however, I was keen to explore an area about 25 km from the lake that had, according to my guide book, a quite megalithic and incongruously flamboyant Buddhist temple. It was 37 stories high at its grandest point and coated in gold. Surely, a guide book beat up? After traversing some back roads and finding nothing, we rounded a bend to see this incredible sight. The temple glinted blindingly in the sun perched high on a small mountain and the roads lining the entrance were home to at least 250 full size tour buses! We found out later that we had stumbled upon their biggest day of the year, a day of prayer and a rally for peace between Taiwan and China. The opposition leader and various dignitaries were at an official ceremony just as we arrived and we became minor celebrities ourselves as the only foreigners among a 50,000 strong crowd…it was a total spinout! The temple was just awesome and seemed to hold to the adage of the great cathedral at Albi in southern France which we had visited: build it to such epic proportions that man feels belittled and in awe at the presence of god (or something like that). After fireworks were lit and thousands of balloons released we explored this, the most impressive of all Asian temples we have seen…incredible!!

On the way back, we stopped and checked the quaint Japanese era train station and village at Jiji. Some hours later, after a few minor navigational errors, we dropped off all the big roads and wound through a few country byways to arrive at the Cigu salt mountains. These were left, virtually overnight when the Taiwan salt industry collapsed, ironically because Australia cornered the world market with a superior and cheaper product. What a sight! Two megalithic mountains of salt, a dirty grey one to climb (a little guy was drilling out new steps as we went up) and a fresh white one to frolic in, like snow! There was a real carnival atmosphere, and Cass and I enjoyed some “little eats” of milk fish (with salt of course), forgoing the pleasures of salt flavoured popsicles and most other foods you could name! It was one of the most bizarre tourist attractions we had visited anywhere and well worth the trip. After quite a trip to get there, it was starting to get dark, so we headed toward one of the west coasts big cities, Tainan, to find a spot to sleep for the night. We eventually settled on a “love hotel”, set up ostensibly for amorous couples to escape for a few hours of indulgent pleasure, but an excellent alternative for a night’s stay. The rooms tend to be well furnished, large, opulent and extremely clean, which this one was, and judging by the crowd at breakfast the next morning (lots of families) we weren’t the only ones who are onto the “secret”.
Today was the day to discover the allures of the southern tip, the oft talked about Kenting and beyond. I’ll write the next chapter in a day or two!

Our Christmas break, which starts next Thursday about midday, has certainly crept up on us. I thought I had all sorts of time to work out a vague itinerary for our trip and to get the car serviced and freeway worthy etc. Cass has to get Lily organized to look after the cats, and we both need to do all sorts of stuff in a few days. This last week has been very busy for a number of reasons for Cassy, culminating in her hosting her book club on Friday night after preparing reports for the end of semester.

Through the week, I noticed all sorts of strange behaviour and it took me a while to figure it all out. Cassy was asking me about my specific plans for Friday night (I was going to the lower school Christmas party) and started to go through very unusual and rare cleaning procedures. The ceilings in our bathrooms eventually build a light, streaky mould due to the lack of ventilation after a few years, but I showered on Wednesday to find it gone, the ceiling sparkly clean. Even though the house is always spotless, as Friday approached, it became more “showpiecey”, things appeared in artful arrangements, great bunches of beautiful budding flowers appeared and extra oven cooking was going on through the nights. Before this, of course, the gourmet supermarkets had been raided and interesting items were lined up: pates from France, special ingredients for allergic guests etc etc. Suffice to say, that the massive preparations were very worthwhile from all reports, as the chicken pumpkin curry main course and Pavlova for dessert disappeared and the attending book readers stayed way into the night, so late in fact that said busy hostess was wishing them away!

I attended the LS Christmas party at the principal’s house perched precariously on the very top of a ridge overlooking Taipei: the view is spectacular as dusk turns to night and I often find myself a little spot outside to take in the view. After that, Wal and I whiled away a little time at a new bar just around the corner from our place and ate some barbequed chicken and beef skewers, which were especially delicious. We enjoyed the ambiance and it reminded me a lot of bars in Japan: mostly because unlike the usual foreign friendly places we haunt, there was no English spoken at all: another reminder of my limited skills!

Shaun and Katie (we attended their wedding in Tasmania a few years ago) were moving house from up the hill to a newly renovated ground floor place just around the corner from us in Lane 10, Ker Qiang Rd. In a moment of generous spirit, I’d offered to help with the move, so subsequently found myself outside his door at 7.45 Saturday morning! I ended up ferrying carload upon carload of kiddy toys and various paraphernalia done to their new place for about 5 hours, worked myself into a ball of sweat, then got home to have an extremely late afternoon breakfast with Cassy! Later that day, I moseyed around to make sure that everything was OK and ended up arriving just at the “right” time to re-arrange some big items that they’d had second thoughts about…..! I really didn’t mind though: they are a lovely couple and very genuine, kind people and I think it will be great to have them just around the corner, with their one year old daughter, Bella.

We were both planning a lazy and entertaining off day today and I had bought the rights to the cricket. Both exhausted after the end-of-term school stuff and our social commitments, it would have been great to laze around and watch the one dayer between NZ and Aust. The start was great, the Aussies got 3 wickets…then the rain came tumbling down and didn’t let up. Oh well, it gave Cass a chance to snuggle with the “girls and have a good read and me a chance to re-visit my Taiwan books and maps to start to plan the “great adventure”! Photos: Cass at breakfast, book club visitors and our new neighbours tearing their hair out with the moving process!

There is quite a phenomenon going on in the online world by the name of Facebook. I joined up about a year ago, but didn’t do much about it and thought it was a glorified email application. I couple of weeks back, some of the guys who have left here to work elsewhere in Asia and beyond started using it for contact instead of texting each other all the time. To cut a long story short, it has been nothing short of a revelation to me and Cassy. We’re now in contact with scores of ex-students, old friends, people from the long forgotten past and of course, our current friends. I must say that I’ve hardly found any of our old friends on here but I’ve also discovered I’m not the oldest person on Facebook, but must be pretty close to it! Anyway, loads of fun…

We’ve had one of those mental weeks at work where you wonder how you get the energy to show up the next day. We’re both in the throes of completing assessments, reports and finalizing meetings etc etc before the semester ends on December 20. There’s still a fair way to go, but we’re looking forward to the break as we have plans for a very different holiday. Eschewing the temptations of home and also a planned trip to Rome and Berlin, we have instead decided to travel around the island of Taiwan by car! Now, before you cringe at the choice, I must state that we’ve never done more than a day trip out of the capital and our occasional visitors, Chris and Val, for example, have seen more of the island than we have! I decided to start learning Chinese this academic year, so since September, I have been going to lessons twice a week. My fanciful goal was to prepare specifically for this trip…rather fanciful!! Suffice to say that we hope we have enough communication skills to get a little off the tourist trail and into some spots rarely seen by the casual tourist to Taiwan. We’re armed with various guide books and maps (and of course iPods full of audio language lessons for my evening entertainment!), and hope to not only gain a greater appreciation of our island home outside Taipei city and environs, but also to find some of the fabled, whispered about magic surfing breaks on the rugged and largely unspoiled south east coast. Time will tell, but we’re confident it will be interesting to say the least!

Now, this weekend, while my students past/new Facebook friends were enjoying their newly wed status, or enjoying their growing tribes of kiddies, I went out on a buck’s night! A young man’s domain to be sure, but I had helped a couple of the other guys organize it after my experience with Ross’ big send off. We got a coach and T shirts organized and the night was a huge hit. 35 of us hit about 9 bars in Taipei city and got a little silly. There were “wise” married men to offer words of advice and a special “rule” at each venue and much beer was consumed and various high jinks performed. Our journey to the “combat zone” was pretty funny. A faded string of bars with glittering signs and girls who entice the wandering male in for a drink, some of the new guys were quite taken by the whole scene. In fact, the groom-to-be himself had to be literally dragged from one bar as everyone was on the bus ready to go and we realized that someone was missing! Anyway, it was great fun and the man of the moment had a wonderful night. If you’d like to see more of the night, check this link.

Cassy decided we needed to get out and face another magnificent day on Sunday (it was much like last Sunday) and although we shelved plans to go to the cinema or the flower market, we did mosey on down to Takashimaya shopping mall. Ostensibly to pick up a few groceries from Jason’s (including, I must say, the new prime beef Australian sausages…ahhh!), we also took the opportunity to have lunch in the huge basement eating area. After this we took in the twice daily feeding of the fish in the centre’s aquarium. The tank is so huge that a neon yellow wetsuit clad scuba diver does a performance where he swims around to classical music with a glittering trail of fish in his wake as he passes food out from his bag. It’s always good fun and the little kiddies just love it. Well, that’s about it today: sorry this blog entry is a bit late, but I’ve been typing so many reports and proposals this week that I just couldn’t stomach it until now! Photos: a small “All Vics” buck’s night group, me and the man of the moment, the feeding of the fish, two penguins in the forecourt and Virg’n Mary in their usual weekend pose.

This was a magic weekend after a rather long week! After a four day break, the usual 5 day week was a bit hard to handle. Wal and I and Gurecki met up with various friends along the route of next week’s “All Vics” bus trip on Friday night. I can’t help myself, it’s been pretty much planned like a military exercise, partly because I want things to run smoothly and partly as a counter balance to Wal’s “she’ll be right mate!” attitude! We visited the nine bars necessary and I passed over a “permission slip” of sorts giving them a vague idea of the times and numbers of people, in English and Chinese (someone helped me, obviously). Now I must report I went home a little early with a massive headache, so bad I could hardly talk or move my head and no…it wasn’t beer induced! I woke up that morning with a pinched nerve feeling in my upper back/lower neck and it just got worse and worse all night.

On Saturday, the pain had eased a little so after one of our fine weekend mornings of lazy brekkys and reading of lots of Herald clippings courtesy of my Mum, we decided to put in place a few more beautifying items for the new study. Cassy, quite wisely, decided that I wasn’t up to surfing (and driving over there) as I could barely turn my head to the right. Instead, we decided to go looking for one of the exquisite hand made blue and white Chinese pots that we often see around. As chance would have it, we have a great pottery shop straight across Chung Shan Rd in our section that our visitors will remember. We edged and filled our way through tiny corridors of pot after pot, many precariously placed on endless series of shelves, some dotted along the floors and still others stacked on the rooftop! It’s a higgledy piggledy world of 4 floors and I really felt like a bull in a china shop and felt thankful to get out with no breakages. Cass decided on a very beautiful pot, we paid the girl and brought our treasure home. Next, off to the plant market! Cass thought we might go down to the megalithic flower market, but in my invalid condition, we decided to wander down to the Wen Lin Rd district to a very large nursery there. After dismissing 100s of orchids (mainly because I don’t like them particularly!) we decided on a very robust looking dieffenbachia. The princely sum of $NT150 was handed over (about $5) and we wandered back home on a bit of a circuitous route. We spied a replica French antique furniture store by the name of Carcassonne and thought that quite hilarious as it bore absolutely no resemblance to our home of some months years ago, the medieval walled town of Carcassonne in southern France.
On Saturday night we watched another great movie, this time Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe in “American Gangster”. It was a bit of a slow burn, but when it got going it was totally engaging. One thing we both appreciated: even though the story was a bit hard to follow early on, the director (Ridley Scott) didn’t treat the audience like morons, which is a rare treat.

Sunday was an amazing weather day. We eventually hauled ourselves out to the beach where I had a great surf and Cass blissed out in the sun looking out over a blue sky (pretty rare), full sun not beating through a pollution haze (very rare) and an ocean that was clear and clean (extremely rare!). On our way to pick up the car, we nearly literally ran into one of our neighbours getting ready for a temple ceremony involving these big wooden demon like figures...only in Taiwan! Even though my neck is not cured, it showed some signs of improvement, so we thought the drive might be OK. As it turned out, due to the fact that we left at lunchtime, the traffic meant a pretty slow old trip anyway. Cassy made us a little picnic lunch of curried egg sangas and cokes, which we had looking out over before said beauty. We commented that we could have been back home sitting on our table down at Merewether beach, watching the world go by and nearly nodding off with a soft sun dancing a soporific warm beat on our backs.
Anyway, I’ll tell you what does give me a neck ache…this! So, I’ll stop now with photos of our satanic neighbour, Cass looking over the surf this afternoon, shot of the pots on the roof, me with plant in hand, Cass on the path home and the Taiwanese Carcassonne!

We’ve had a magical four days off this Thursday through to Sunday because of the American School’s Thanksgiving holiday. As is usually the case when we get to this point, the holiday was dominated by lots of relaxing and sleeping in as, unlike back home, we’ve been going pretty solidly since the start of August without a break. Teachers who read this blog will know what I mean, and I’m sure all others who deal with hundreds of different personalities everyday will know: it’s not really the physical, but the mental sapping of energy that accumulates over time. Anyway, suffice to say, we’ve had a good break and we feel great!

I was keen to get some surfing in if at all possible on either Thursday or Friday or both to take advantage of the lack of others in the water. Dan rang and we discussed possibilities of a previously unsurfed rocky ledge called Green Ball (for the rather large satellite tracking stations on the bluff in the shape of big green balls!), but the tide and wind were all wrong so we made plans to meet at 6.30 the next morning. Cassy and I had long planned to tidy up and “re-decorate” our study, and make the most of what could be a really pretty and relaxing room. It’s ironic in a way that we like this room so much because we just spent weeks back home blowing away our study to give us some more bedroom and storage space…I don’t really get it either! Anyway, we found lots of stuff to get rid of including stacks of Taipei foreigner magazines reaching to the roof on our shelves along with surplus wires and leads and old clothing waiting to be transported to the charity bin. We also re-located bags of kitty litter which were blocking the under desk area and finally got rid of piles of boxes of computer goods (just in case I ever needed them again: a definite legacy from my Dad!). This whole process is easier said than done of course: no convenient rubbish bin for us. We sorted what we could for the recycling lady across the street then I looked up my character dictionary to write “operational” in Chinese on the printer and sundry other pieces of equipment we were shedding. Then off shopping! HOLA was just about empty and we breezed through the car park and into the shop. We prevaricated over various mats and rugs, eventually settling on a Japanese one which, although man made, feels and looks like the finest softest Merino wool…it’s just unreal! We got a new office chair for the desk and moved Dad’s old leather chair from the bedroom in to the study. After moving the computer and filing cabinet and shoe cupboard all around and tidying everything up, we’ve got a really comfortable work area again; no excuse now for not doing that Chinese study. After that I drove Cass down to Chili’s in the Miramar building: we felt like real civilized people not pulling up on a scooter for once and had an excellent tasty and filling meal.

We were exhausted after all this cleaning, moving, shopping and decorating but I still struggled out of bed at 6 to meet Dan for a trip over the hill. We got to Jinshan only to discover that while it was a reasonable size, the extra drive round the coast to Green Ball would not have been worth it as the swell drops by about ½ as you go round the tip. Instead, after checking the usual spots we headed back to a previously unsurfed but often longingly gazed upon spot north of Jinshan point. The reason it has never been ridden is that it only starts to work at about 4-5 foot and breaks very quickly onto nothing but huge boulders! To read the full story and more pics check pointyhat story here. I’ve nicknamed the place Kamikazes and we don’t really expect to see anyone else surf there…it was a bit hair-raising.
Saturday dawned on great excitement for me, yet I still managed to contain this election fever long enough to sleep in quite late. Cass went off and did some food shopping, I fiddled around on the computer in the new study, and then we took a bus downtown for a walk around. We saw a rather frequent sight here in Taipei: that of lazy dog owners taking their dog for a walk while they ride a bike. Even worse is the dog owner who rides the scooter while taking the dog for a walk/run, but that’s another story. This dog was sprinting down the street wearing special little dog shoes which clip-clopped along like a tiny horse…it was pretty funny!
Back home to election night, starting Taipei time at 3pm. We both love election night, the analysis and excitement, the revelations and elation and disappointment. It’s a great real life drama played out publicly for a few hours every three or four years where election nerds and election junkies like Antony Green and Kerry O’Brien strut their stuff. I was glued to the set for the whole telecast and we both really enjoyed it. I won’t politicize this blog with my views on the result: everyone knows where we stand politically, but I will say that one impediment to us returning home to live one day has been removed.

Sunday was another possibility for a beach run, but again, strong winds had ruined all the breaks on both coasts according to some rudimentary forecasting and checking of charts and cams. After (again!) sleeping in, and I don’t know how we’ll get up at 6 tomorrow, we lazed around till we took off for the movies at around midday. Before we went up I bought a silicon case for my iPod Touch and a “USB fridge” a novelty appliance that you can plug into a USB port that keeps a can of drink cold! I know this sounds a little ridiculous, but I justified the purchase by using some gift vouchers that some students gave me last year. I still reckon everyone at work will be jealous and covet my tiny fridge when they see it (or maybe they’ll take that as final confirmation that I’ve lost my mind).
After watching the movie “Before the Devil Knows You’re There” I’m glad that I went in a pretty upbeat state of mind. The characters were distinctly unlikable, the story gob-smackingly horrifying and it reeled from one disaster to the next. It was graphic in its telling of a robbery gone wrong and the human tragedy that unfolded before during and after the main event. The leads, however unlikable, were superb in their roles and the movie was a masterpiece from that veteran director (no, he’s not dead), 83 year old Sidney Lumet. It certainly had undertones of that other Lumet classic “Dog Day Afternoon”.
Anyway, a long winded blog today, probably lucky for you we don’t get 4 days off every week! Photos: various shots of the new room, running "horse" dog and Cassy and David at “Thai Town” after the movie today.

Even though we awoke to a stellar weather day on Saturday, the sun beating down from unclouded skies made us a little wary of a day at the beach. Readers of this blog will remember our beach umbrella being shredded a while back and we haven’t, as yet, sourced a replacement. The fact that the surf was nearly non existent made up our minds.

After a latish breakfast we decided to pack a little bag of stuff and take the train to Damshui at the far end of the MRT line, but headed, unusually for us, away from town. Armed with sun cream and a pair of sunnies each (a rare event as the sun rarely blazes away here like it does in Australia…we can step out of the terminal in Sydney on occasions and nearly burn out the back of our retinas, but that’s another story!) The train trip there and back is part of the entertainment. It takes about ½ an hour each way and very quickly the city fades into surprising rural scenes. It never fails to amaze how tiny little farm plots nestled in beside the railway in that little wasteland that’s usually not used seem to be bursting with bounty: very carefully tended by conical hatted folk, much like I imagine has been happening for 100s of years. Yet, as we watch them, we’re cocooned in this slick metal air-conditioned bullet hurtling past to and from a very different reality.

Arrival at Damshui is a pleasure as the station is large and welcoming and leads to a wonderfully re-vamped foreshore park with lawns and trees and wide open pathways leading to the riverbank. One interesting addition since we last visited are the dueling donut megastores trading straight opposite each other on the promenade…Taipei’s latest fad and I’m sure a great money-spinner for Mister Donuts, Dunkin’ Donuts and others. The crowd here is always immense and confronting, but the riverside boardwalk is pretty much able to handle a great crowd these days.

All the fun of the fair is available here and stall and shop after shop were hawking their games and amusements. Shoot the balloons with a very realistic looking revolver, manipulate the claw to get a soft toy or collar a Wii with your hoop…it’s all part of the fevered Damshui riverside carnivale. Many stalls have another curiously Damshui phenomenon: giant inflatable toys! You can pick from a brutal looking mace, a massive hammer or from a selection of human sized bottles of beer or soft drink. The other Damshui staple is the ice cream that is so ridiculously tall that it is about to topple over. Gaggles of schoolgirls try to lick the ice-cream down from silly heights after daring each other to get a bigger and taller one: it’s quite hilarious to watch and many hit the boardwalk to be a melted mess for the passing parade to dodge. We sought some solace from the sun in a brilliant trendy little restaurant bar straight opposite the ferry wharf to Bali (yes, really!: it’s on the opposite side of the river!) and were able to sip some San Pellegrino and watch the passing parade. We had a scrumptious lunch of lamb chops (me) and steak Porcini (Cassy) with various befores and afters. As is tradition for the hordes, we walked to the end of the wharf then cut through to the main street behind which was even thicker with people and events: it’s a struggle just to make it back to the train! We were a bit exhausted by the time we got home but had a very entertaining day. Cassy was sick of her hair and decided she needed a cut: who cares if it was Saturday night?! One of the joys of the big city: it seems everything is always open.

Sunday was a bit dreary in comparison and we hummed and haaed about what we might do before deciding to take a drive to the east coast for a change. Through Neihu and eventually onto the first of three expressways we made our way through that 13 km tunnel amongst other tunnels and elevated road systems. It’s like you’re driving a miniature car through a vein in a body: there’s no way out and no turning back just kilometre markers and an eerie voice from the speakers that tells us all sorts of information we can’t understand: I’m glad I’m not claustrophobic!
Wushi’s surf was terrible but after checking a few spots up the road, we settled on Dasi. It wasn’t very pleasant for Cass, hunkered in the car in the rain, but luckily she’d thought to bring a magazine along so wasn’t too badly off (or so I told myself as I joined the little group out at the point). Check the Pointyhat story here for some details and photos. Our trip home was slow as can be: Taiwanese drivers tend to slow to a very annoying crawl at the first sign of a bit of a drizzle and that combined with the Taipei hordes trying to get back to the city on a Sunday evening made for a long tedious drive. I must admit, I nearly sacrificed doing this blog tonight, but thought if I don’t do it now, I won’t do it at all.

Short week for us this week as we celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday and Friday (I never thought I’d say this phrase but, “Thank you America”!). We’re looking forward to the break. Photos: Damshui boardwalk pics, the trendy little restaurant, the seething hordes and “Octopus anyone”!

Wal and I had a few of Diamond Tony’s special long glasses of Erdinger on Friday night and had a real social time as various guests dropped in for a drink and a chat. Brandon joined us for a while before heading off to tea, and we had a few suspects from the upper school English department drop in before, just as we were about to leave (we’d called for the bill!) Lewy phoned up and said he’d join us. So, we stayed a little longer!

This was not the ideal preparation for the Saturday morning external admission tests, organized for the next day. Luckily, I’d got everything well organized in advance, even down to pencils and spare paper, and dumping it in the admissions office. I supervised the testing for some middle and upper school hopefuls and when those 3 hours were up, I actually felt I’d almost been up for a whole day. I must praise glowingly, almost certainly not for the last time, my new iPod touch: as I invigilated my hapless charges, I was able to wander round, or sit at the front reading the Sydney Morning Herald online and catching up with the live cricket updates. Cass was most impressed with my knowledge of current events when I returned home. Speaking of the cricket, owing to a rather annoying fact that vast times of our working days are actually spent working (!), we choose for this short test series, to just rely on the audio. ABC radio is blocked to certain areas of the world for certain sport broadcasts, but for just $20 I was able to purchase the rights for the whole summer. It’s quite a hoot to listen to the dulcet tones of Drew Morphett explaining the finer and more delicious points of his lunch while we’re eating a late brekky here in Taipei!

Joe the jeweler had emailed Cassy to come down for another “fitting” of her next ring (all will be revealed in January), so I decided to go down with her as we were handing over quite a reasonable sum of money. The bus clanked and bunny hopped the whole way as usual: the Taipei bus drivers haven’t undergone any amazing driving improvement in the last few weeks and we were disgorged a few blocks north of Taipei’s central area. After the fitting, which Cassy was pleased with, we wandered a few more blocks to re-visit some awesome Japanese “$2” shops, which defy the imagination. I suppose they’re a little bit like an Ikea warehouse for $2 junk and it is impossible to exit without a bagful of what seems at the time to be necessary and wondrous product, but when the bags are emptied at home, I often wonder what we were thinking! After that we wandered enjoying the Chungshan MRT station environs with its pleasant tree lined avenues just off the main drag and quirky restaurants and a plethora of trendy hairdressers. There are so many in a few blocks (at least 50) that we wondered how on earth they all survive.
MRT back home and Cass ordered some Alleycats pizza which I scootered down to retrieve: it was just sensational! Bit of TV and off to snoozeville…

Sunday set a new record: I slept in till 9.30! Cassy was even stirring before me and seemed amazed I was still in bed. After a wonderful lazy breakfast, we read the last of the Herald clippings from Mum today (we’d carefully eked them out for weeks while Mum was having her wonderful American opera, orchestra, culture tour) and I decided to head for the Pillbox. Cass had a fair bit of marking to do and the day was not terribly inviting, so I went over alone. Dan was keen to go, I discovered later, but had lost another mobile phone, so hadn’t got my message (he’s lost at least three of them…expensive hobby!)
The surf was just excellent and I stayed out for many hours till I got too tired of paddling against the usual strong rip. There is often a rather strong wafting and pungent smell here and I spied the source of the smell today…wandering up the road beside the foreshore was this corpulent pig!
Photos today are of hairdressers at Chunshan station, disgustingly fat pig at the Pillbox, the dancing Hawaiian girl that Ross and Ains gave us, now adorning the dash of the Auburgino and Cassy and David as they would appear on the Simpsons. This was a bit of a laugh for us: you submit a photo and make a few adjustments and you get what you might look like if you were on the Simpsons. I think they’re scarily authentic!

P.S. It was on this exact day, 5 years ago, that we started this blog. In those days, rather random, short entries were the norm, no photos, no videos, no links and a very basic layout. We often wish we'd started it earlier, say 15 months before that when we first arrived...we can barely remember how utterly strange and confronting we thought Taipei was! Here's the first entry copied below...

Monday, November 11, 2002
We've just started our web page to see how we go. Hopefully, this will be an interesting way for people to catch up with what we are doing.

Potato scallops gourmet style, melt in your mouth lamb ribs, beer battered fish and chips with aioli and tomato sauce, roasted vegetables and washed down with a couple of glasses of Wolf Blass 2004 cab sav…a menu possibility where else but Australia. Right? Wrong. You can also savour this feast on the massive arterial Ren Ai Road in the south east of Taipei’s downtown region. Another amazing discovery from internet and expat magazine online reviews, Mary’s café, featuring Australian cuisine, was our destination on Friday night. We had fun getting there catching a couple of trains and negotiating through a few backstreets to find it, including asking a few building guards if we headed in the right direction. Although we ate inside, it also has an attractive deck (fairly rare in Taipei) and an amazingly familiar menu…we really could have been back home somewhere. The chef spent 20 years in Australia working, amongst other jobs, with the Holden Racing Team! The restaurant has football jumpers of all codes in frames, showcases of model race cars and motorbikes, footballs on benches and of course, stuffed koalas and kangaroos…it was very cute and a really great find.

Still excited by our find the night before and a little weary after traipsing through the city after a fairly hectic working week, we got up relatively late on Saturday. I’d been up for only minutes (at 9am!) when Dan rang (he has a young family and had been up since 5…) asking if we were heading to the beach. I agreed to meet him over the hill in about an hour and a half, but as it turned out, he had some car trouble and couldn’t get out there. It was wild, wet and windy, the ocean at Pointies and the Rocket not dissimilar to a washing machine, but through the tunnel at the sheltered end of Green Bay were about 150 surfers! Cass and I couldn’t believe our eyes…these guys really know how to follow a crowd. The surf here was still abysmally awful, so we thought we’d take the long drive back round the coast to see if the Pillbox was working. On the way, we had a great drive: the coastline really is very beautiful on a lightly storming day: the wind snaps trees to and fro, the water is an icy, menacing grey and people in the little towns along the way seem to be experiencing an artic winter from the wooly balloon like parkas that seem to have appeared everywhere as soon as the temperature drops a couple of points. I must admit that the Pillbox, while offering a little puff of offshore wind and a half reasonable wave was just a little bit chilly! Have we turned Taiwanese? This development is rather strange: the real temperature is still relatively mild, but we’re finding ourselves wearing jackets and long pants in the day and hauling bed clothes up around our chins at night. Anyway, this epiphany is a little concerning to me…best get back to the surf. The surf was pretty good and the crowd, as usual at our “secret spot” was non existent, just the way I like it! On the way back we got some KFC for a late lunch as we were both starving and I flashed out a little more of my pathetic, rudimentary Chinese with surprisingly good results. The main trouble occurs when people start thinking you can actually speak Mandarin: my comprehension is limited to say the least! Oh well, small steps: I should take some of the advice I dish out to the poor little babies that I teach.

We’ve started to watch a DVD series that a guy at school has lent us and we watched a few episodes on Saturday night. It’s called “Teachers”, a BBC production and a real hoot. It started in 2001, but we haven’t seen any of it so as we have all 4 series here, it looks like keeping us entertained for a good while to come. We awoke to a dreary, dark Sunday, wind whipping spits of rain about; decidedly unpleasant conditions for any outdoor pursuit. What better time to see Ang Lee’s latest film, “Lust, Caution”? Set in Shanghai and Hong Kong in WWII, it had the Ang Lee fine patina of beauty lightly brushed through every scene. Quite seductive in its costuming and settings, the leading actors were gorgeous and believable in their roles. It was just a few ticks under three hours, but it could have gone on and on, it was a satisfying visual and emotional pleasure for us with ample nods to clever direction, cinematography and symbolism.

We strolled home through just a micro mist of rain, stopping off for another late lunch in the basement of Takashimaya, where we both had some Indian food. We walked back down the Shi Dong, but decided to stop at Ikari Coffee for a latte: it was very laidback inside, soothing sounds, great smells and cool décor. We sat in a couple of plush armchairs and got inspired to jazz up the study at home a little with dad’s big old chair (currently in the bedroom) and some better lighting. Oh well, maybe when we get a chance…!
A great weekend this, photos are of Taipei out and about at night, topped with us at Mary’s Australian café!

Here are some more Ju Ming photos...