At one stage on Friday evening I didn’t know where to look. Mick Fanning was slotting into an awesome, yawning barrel at Teahupoo on one TV while diagonally across the room the AFL semi final was just entering the 3rd quarter. To top things off, Gilly was blasting a Freddy Flintoff delivery over the pickets in the Twenty20 match between Australia and England. All I can say is: thank you for modern technology and satellite TV! All this and more in a tiny hole in the wall in Tienmu, sucking shows off the South African satellite feed, ABC Asia Pacific network and the Indian cable: we’re just too spoilt.We were at the Green Bar to watch some footy and cricket after the end of two moderately tedious PD days. As is an on again/off again tradition at the end of these two days, faculty were invited to have a couple of drinks on the school at the Pig and Whistle. This went on to the Green eventually and then on home. Cass was pretty keen to avoid the crush at the Pig, partly because she just doesn’t like it and partly because she wanted some downtime at home before she heads off to Grade 8 camp this week. This yearly event is not her favorite time of year, but she is always very stoic and takes it in her stride. I’ve been known to whinge long and loud about my one night stay in comparative luxury, so I quite admire her approach! She’ll miss having Kathy around, but this will be partly alleviated by Kristin making a re-appearance this year. She’s been busy packing and getting the requisite supplies together, such as tiny disposable raincoats to put in her backpack: not an item of clothing Cassy normally has to hand!
We had a really good day yesterday. After a long iced latte (I had an iced latte caramel macadamia, whatever that is!) we wandered over to the Mitsukoshi complex in Tienmu to watch a movie. Prior to that I thought I’d whiz downstairs to FNAC, the electronics store to pre-order my iPod Touch. I’m getting the bigger 16 GB model and am really excited about it. I had to pay upfront, and it is due some time in October, the earlier the better for me! Cassy finds this excitement wildly amusing and I suppose it is a little strange, but I’ve held off buying a new iPod for years in the hope that they would bring a wide screen video model out. Not only that, but it is touch screen and has wi-fi internet capability. Obviously, I could go on and on here but in case you’re in the Cassy excitement factor camp, I’ll stop here! If you’re really interested, check this out and you’ll get the idea.
The movie was “The Brave One”, and we went along with only moderate expectations. It turned out to be really compelling, with a couple of star turns from the two leads, Jodie Foster and Terrance Howard. It had real suspense and plausible and genuine character driven scenes complementing the basic vigilante storyline. We’d give it a B for plot and A- for acting. After that we went to the 7th floor to redeem our “prize” for buying something: the FNAC salesman seemed very excited about it. It turned out to be a bit of a fizzer, just a 100NT$ gift voucher, but it did have a hidden bonus: we walked straight past the door of Thai Town restaurant and decided to have an early dinner. This is a very efficient Thai restaurant, certainly not exquisite Thai food, but tasty, fresh and clean. The staff members all seem to speak perfect English which is always a massive bonus! After our Golden Moon Shrimp cakes and green curries, we motored home to catch the end of the AFL footy. After receiving and sending text messages from Josh and Chad in Singapore and Coomba in Hong Kong during the game, we marveled again at our shrinking world in terms of instant communication.
This morning I raced over to catch a bit of some typhoon swell just brushing the north east tip of the island before scurrying up to Japan (the typhoon, not me!), and managed to get some good solid swell in extremely uncrowded conditions (make that just 1: me) I just love it when the waves build and the crowds thin over here…it makes a pleasant change from the usual two foot and “walk on water” clogging crowds we usually experience. I went to Pointies first, but decided not to risk the wrath of the assembled fledgling Taipei lifeguard brigade. They were equipped with life jackets and headgear and seemed very intent on saving themselves and playing with their equipment, so instead of enduring a spirited blast of various whistles ordering me out of the “dangerous” waters, I chose instead to travel 5 minutes down the road to the deserted Rocket.
After a good, but exhausting surf, I was keen to get home to watch the NRL semi, but my plans were partly thwarted by a second group of overly officious officialdom. A couple of policeman stopped traffic at the Starbucks intersection at Yangminshan village for 17 minutes! I was a touch miffed by the time they eventually let us through! Well, Cassy is nearly off to camp as I said, so I’ll have the onerous responsibility of looking after the eating, pooing machine that is Virg’n Mary till Friday. I’m sure I’ll cope….(!) Photos today are a little quirky and on a mini transport theme. A dinosaur clad lad on a scooter caused quite a stir and lots of laughs, an older guy on a motorbike wears yellow Crocs and carries the shopping and an even older guy plies his trade on traditional bike and pointy hat! The next photo is of the super efficient Jinshan lifeguard brigade and the last one of the grade 3 teachers.
