Here are some more Ju Ming photos...

Occasionally, a dearth of “publish worthy” photos on Sunday night can mean I’m scrambling around a bit, but not this week. It can be a bit of a hassle actually, as I’m keen to embellish my rather mundane weekly musings with some visual content, yet I still insist in taking every photo at 7 mega pixels, necessitating some time to resize photos for blogging purposes. I’m ever in hope of catching that one great shot that could be enlarged to gigantic sizes; hence the original giant files sizes! This week however, I’ve had a hard time deciding which photos to include/discard as I have an embarrassment of riches.

This weekend was a little bit “Groundhog Day” until Sunday. I’d had a few beers with Wal on Friday night and Cass and I bumbled around on Saturday until we went way down to the southern area of the city, a long way past the city to the environs of the National Taiwan University. The MRT delivered us quite efficiently to where we thought we wanted to go, but each successive laneway just looked less and less familiar until we realized we’d got out one stop too early! Not to be put off, we trekked along till we got to the right area, did a little bit of Taipei laneway reconnoitering and found our destination, the little restaurant, Sababba. The whole scene done there was very cool: Egyptian rolls were being prepared on the street, lots of great restaurants peeping out behind curious neon monikers like “The Hiding Cat” “Box” and the “I Swear Café”(good one for me I decided!) This city really does have wonderful street appeal: Saturday night just pulses to a very hip beat, while at the same time, it seems to accommodate all sorts, even old dags like us.

Like most weekends we’d planned to get out to the beach if possible on Sunday. Cass just loves it out in the fresh air away from the city and often comments that she doesn’t care how long I stay in the water, as she really enjoys just sitting reading her book and watching the ocean. I got a few rather pathetic waves at Pointies near Jinshan harbour, but must say that the water was just perfect, clean and a crisp temp, there was not a cloud in the sky and a light breeze blew. We’d traipsed way down to the far jetty and managed to convince ourselves we were back on Merewether beach: minus the crowd and minus the cleanliness!

The main plan for the day, however was yet to come. It was just past noon and we ventured into the hills that rise precipitously behind Jinshan town to search out the Ju Ming Museum. Ju Ming, a world renowned Taiwanese sculptor, has set out a large number of magnificent works on the hillside, nearly all megalithic in size and cast from bronze. How this could be achieved was beyond us, as some of the larger pieces were the size of a small bus. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. We wound our way unerringly upward to quite a dizzy height before we arrived. Cass had made a picnic lunch for us, so after entering, we found one of the designated eating areas and enjoyed our sangas and cans of drink while watching an amazing frenzy of feeding by plump, energetic koi, literally swimming over the top of each other to get at the special food people were feeding them. We then wandered around the park inspecting the works as we went. The metallic ones were life size and had some merit as did the “Armed Forces” series, but the subject matter left us a little lukewarm. The crowning achievements were the massive “Tai Chi series”, where exponents of Chinese martial arts were captured in bronze, their ‘gi’ easily identified and their flexibility and power clearly outlined (I noticed the flexibility in particular, when I nearly pulled a groin muscle trying to emulate one pose: more training?!). On the hill overlooking the ocean were two clever pieces: one, a life size representation of a young Ju Ming herding goats, the other, a massive ship shaped from stainless steel with scores of attending sailors in painted bronze, its skeletal hull stark against the ocean and modern cargo ships lying outside port at Keelung waiting to berth. Inside the main building, a seminal Ju Ming work in rough carved wood, of a buffalo straining to pull a cart laden with timber urged on by his peasant master was just magnificent: the feeling of colossal strength was almost palpable.

On the way back, we paused in a lovely little glass box café to have a caramel macchiato each and then strolled through an art corridor to the main building again. Inside we had the most pleasant and special surprise. We were pretty tired by this time, and nearly decided to forgo the inside area of small works, but were so glad we didn’t. There was a small number of magnificent and thought provoking works gathered for a special showing by some of the worlds leading pop artists. Andy Warhol’s “Mao” paintings, three works by Salvador Dali, including a fantastic example of his dripping clock in bronze. Henry Moore sculptures, a beautiful Joan Miró drawing and a couple of etchings by Pablo Picasso were also in the mix. What a fantastic discovery, and no wonder I spied a couple of security cameras silently panning the crowd…..

We wondered to ourselves on the way back how we’d managed not to visit this wonderful space after 6 plus years in the country and it being so close: looks there is a bit of living yet to do in this “Taipei Life”. Photos today: Cass in a “Logan’s Run” style MRT station on Saturday night, and the rest the surprising and stimulating Ju Ming Museum.

While we’ve had a notably uninspiring week here at work and play, I find myself, not for the first time, at quite a loss as to a topic for this week’s blog entry. The full week was busy plus for Cassy as her biggest task for the year in terms of marking and grading came home to roost this week. The kids reach the end of the memoir unit where they are meant to display all the pearls of wisdom that have been laid down before them in a crowning final personal memoir. Cass and her teaching partners have decided, in their wisdom, to write the most in depth comments on every aspect of this memoir, and then give it back to the kids this weekend to see if they can improve things. Usually, if they make a bit of an effort they can improve their mark a little. The trouble is that she has to mark, in a very thorough fashion, 49 of these missives, so to see that I have seen little of her this week is an understatement!

This, weekend, however, freed from the marking shackles and with mood elevated to a level not seen for a couple of weeks, we’ve had a very pleasant, but lazy, weekend!
Both Cass and I had separate, school sponsored “organized fun” nights out on Friday. I was a co-host, along with my team, for the lower school drinks and Indian food on the rooftop at school, while Cass joined her middle school colleagues for Oktoberfest drinks in the tented courtyard down at Wendel’s.

After a quiet day at home on Saturday, we ventured down to Alleycats’ for some pizza and calzone on Saturday evening, choosing to walk there and back as it was such a pleasant night. The temperature at the moment is just wonderful. Crisp and just slightly refreshing, not too sure whether to take a light jacket, but enjoying the temperature without one: just about perfect with a little breeze. Aaron and Rachel madly bipped their horn at us as we wandered back up the road, they were possibly on the way down to see one of the school’s bands playing downtown. They were starting at some ungodly hour (like 1 am!) and were to be joined by Cassy’s old colleague, Paul H, who was straight off a flight from Jakarta: they must have more energy than us!

Today we got to see the wonderful film, “Michael Clayton”. It was a triumph for all the main leads, a mesmerizing film, each successive scene just adding to the intrigue and wonder. Tilda Swinton was a malevolent ice lawyer and Tom Wilkinson was a most brilliant bipolar ranting genius. It was George Clooney who stole the show however, with an amazing sense of when to give his character just the right set of understated emotion. A scene (cleverly repeated in the film) of three horses standing still and silent on a hill in breath puffing cold air, poised to flee but captivated by Clooney and he by them, is immensely powerful for lots of reasons that become clear through the film. We both loved this movie.

The highlight of this week, for me, was to finally secure my new iPod. Readers of this page will know the background, so I won’t bore you again with the details, but it is a thing of quite amazingly slick tech appeal: anyone remotely interested in IT stuff is quite fascinated. I have downloaded my music (with covers), some podcasts, TV shows and movies and have used the wi-fi internet capability of the iPod too. I have received and sent mail using the onscreen keyboard and checked out the live surfcams. The thing is a little marvel! Cass doesn’t really understand the fuss, but she has noticed that other people are quite fascinated with it as well, which is good for me, as she doesn’t quite believe me to be the raving lunatic she first thought I was when I started touching, sweeping and pinching my fingers all over this funny little thin black box!
Photos: Dave’s 16gb iPod Touch, Cass at Auburgine, waiting to fill up at the special “scooters only” lane at the petrol station, no birds on the bus(!) and an interesting sight of bananas growing vigorously beside and between high-rise apartment blocks!

It’s just been unreal to have a relaxing break from work this long weekend. Wednesday was a PD day at school with no kids, but it wasn’t all a barrel of laughs as we had to attend various workshops and I had to run two 50 minute ones back-to-back on blogging. In their wisdom, the air conditioning had been turned off at school making the rooms a sauna: it certainly hammers home the reality of who is considered important in the school and it aint the teachers! Wal came round on Thursday night to eat some of Cassy’s famous home-made rissoles and we managed to sneak a look at a UFC as well!

Thursday was pretty eventful even after a lateish start. We went down to the movies mid morning to watch “3.10 to Yuma” and the leads, Christian Bale and Russell Crowe elevated this western to a good standard. Afterwards we mosied down to Jaques for a French lunch and it was, as usual, magnifique. Cass was due to pick up her re-modelled ring from Joe the Jeweler, so I was persuaded to accompany her on the bus down. She has had her original engagement diamond and another we bought in Vietnam set as shoulder diamonds on her bigger 10 year wedding anniversary ring. It is very sparkly, even I have to admit! After a jolting ride in the hands of the typically kangaroo hopping Taipei bus driver, we were spat out downtown somewhere to receive said jewels. On the way back, we stopped at the Shilin night market for me to get my watch fixed at the watchmakers. They discovered the winding mechanism was faulty, so I have to pick it up in a couple of days. Afterwards, I boldly declared that we should catch the “next bus” and everything went swimmingly until we got near the BMW corner and the thing turned off in some strange circuitous route miles away from where we wanted to go. As irony had it, we were deposited opposite Jacques’ again, but this time without scooter so we walked home through a series of back streets. We got home just in time for me to go off to my Chinese lesson to have a horrendous time, forgetting everything from previous lessons and creating a look of despair on my teacher’s face that I hope not to see again!

Even though we had planned to meet up with a group of surfers/campers at Fulong on Friday, the swell had dropped and the wind had blown up making it an uninviting prospect. Instead, we decided to do a few jobs that need doing periodically. We took the car down to Carrefour and loaded the trolley up with 20 bags of cat litter and heaps of closet camel re-fills. After getting all this stuff home, I deposited the car back at school and we then watched a bit of stuff on TV. For some reason, I’ve had a bit of trouble with my car rego this time and I made yet another abortive mission to the post office to try to pay it and managed to get everyone in the place offering assistance in Chinese and some broken English when the counter assistant announced in a ridiculously loud voice for some help. After I dragged my highly embarrassed hide out of there I arrived home to find that Cassy had made the most delicious banana cake of all time, one which we are trying not to wolf down every time we’ve had a piece of it since!

We set off to Pointies mid-morning on Saturday for a fairly successful surfing trip and we both felt the relief of getting away from the city for a while. The air was cool and clean and the surf, while nothing like last weekend, provided some fun waves. It’s always about a 4 hour trip if we head over the mountain and back and it was amazing, as usual, to see how different the weather was up top. Visibility was only a few metres due to a very thick fog, it was rainy and cold, yet on either side of the mountain it was quite pleasant, even bright sunshine and hot here in Tienmu. On Saturday night we ventured down to the south east part of town to go to dinner at Tony Roma’s Macaroni Grill and we each had an excellent dinner of veal parmesan. We had a sampler of various dishes for entrée including some superb bruschetta, crab stuffed mushrooms and tender calamari. They weren’t satisfied with their first cooking of our veal, so as we had to wait 15 minutes (which I though was quite reasonable anyway) they gave us a dessert of caramel topping soaked Pannacotta for free. What a meal! We almost literally waddled home after such a feast and even this morning we still felt full. The Hsin Yi district is really quite spectacular, especially at night and we had loads of fun interacting with various street performers, “living statues” etc, who seemed to gravitate towards us for some reason. Another amazing sight was the troupe of beautifully trained dogs catching Frisbees and entertaining a big crowd in the forecourt of the Shinkong Mitsukoshi building. I’ll put a few more of these night shots up in coming weeks.

Today was an extremely lazy day: we slept in till past 9 and Cass managed to do some grocery shopping before the league test came on at noon. We watched that and exhilarated in the wonderful new breed of footballer on display as well as the result (58-0 to Australia) then we’ve managed to do precious little since. The royal “we” has crept in again, sorry: Cassy has been busy doing all sorts of jobs all day; it’s just me that hasn’t done anything!
Photos: The ring, Cass and Joe the jeweler, flags fly proudly for 10/10 holiday, dogs display their talents, us at Tony Roma’s, Cass interacts with an angel, Cass on the bus, Taipei 101 sneaks above Shinkong building at night.

Typhoon Krosa was on a relentless path of destruction, headed for Taipei city as we sheltered in the lower school library at 4pm on Friday afternoon. We were attending a quite moving and beautiful celebration for the life of one of our friends and colleagues who died early this week. Mary was a Kiwi and a much loved one, really full of life and energy who went home just a few months ago to seek some treatment for a diagnosed cancer. She always intended to beat it and return, but she deteriorated quickly in the last few weeks. It was just an amazing ceremony, a real credit to everyone involved. Lewy spoke fondly of her as did a few others. Beautiful music was played and sung, the assembled Kiwis sang a Maori send off quite stirringly: as much as I don’t like these events, if you have to have one, this was about as good as it gets. Lots of people will miss Mary and it brought back thoughts for us for our other friends and colleagues who have also died, and also died of cancer.

Friday night and Saturday just went wild. On Saturday, I watched as our massive and very thick and strong glass doors at the front bowed in quite alarmingly under the force of the typhoon. Windows and doors rattled and snarled, banging themselves in protest to such an extent that Virg’n Mary had huge saucer eyes and were zipping around just wondering where they should run and hide. We decided to draw the curtains in case the windows did smash in and try to block out the lashing and bashing by watching the calming and amusing “Ten Canoes” which Lewy had lent us. In the middle of the movie, the power decided to go off and we promptly found all our candles and torches and Cass ran the bath full of water. Usually if the power goes, the water is soon to follow and you need it for flushing the toilet etc etc. Mercifully, we sat in the dark for only the briefest of blackouts before we were able to resume normal programming!

When we got to sleep over the huffing and puffing outside we expected the big bad wolf to be still around with a vengeance on Sunday morning. We were surprised to be greeted by an eerie stillness and the sight of the carnage from the last few days was evident all through the neighbourhood. Dazed residents slowly emerged to start doing some fixing and tidying and there are massive piles of debris on every street corner awaiting a collection by the local government clean up guys.

Chris and Val called from their spot in Margaret River and described the most wonderful plans for a day trip: to be taken on a wine tasting tour along with gourmet cheese eating, visits to venison parks etc etc. With this in the back of our minds and mindful that my Mum will head off in a few days to the U.S. for magnificent tours operatic, musical and otherwise, we felt quite the unenlightened ones. So, off to the coast we went!
I had magnificent images of huge swells with off shore winds as the evil Krosa swept its way into the East China sea, but these dreams were soon shattered as in turn, the Pill box, Baisahawan, Green Ball, Jinshan and Pointies all had the most appalling slushy conditions. I was determined to get in the water and was just so glad that we persevered. After driving round the ravaged coast for 2 hours, the Cliff had just perfect condition! Better still, I managed to get a 3-4 second tube ride on one wave which absolutely made my day. Even better was the fact that Cass managed to capture nearly all of it on film…check pointyhat “The Green Room”. Starving hungry, we stopped at that great shop, 7/11, for some ice Starbucks caramel lattes and snacks: gotta love that “7”
Looking forward to a short week this week…two days of school, one day of PD (I’m presenting a workshop on “Blogs and Blogging” quite appropriately!) then we’re going to luxuriate in a 4 day holiday for the double ten Chinese holiday. Photos today are of some serious tree devastation straight across the road, Cass enjoying our 7/11 purchases and me on one of those excellent waves today!

Despite the fine weather and temptations to savour a beautiful day outdoors, Saturday was AFL grand final day and beers were being consumed at the ungodly hour of 11am. We were ensconced in the Green Bar, which opened early especially for the game, trying not to look at the gorgeous day outside, while enjoying the game on TV. There was quite a great crew of guys there and we had lots of fun and the usual banter, till we went off home in the late afternoon.

On Friday, Cass had met Wal and I at the Royal Host for tea around 7pm. I’ve described “the Host” on these pages before I’m sure. It’s a Japanese chain restaurant, a “family” restaurant, whatever that implies, although I must admit there are always large numbers of screaming kids flying around. I think the menu has lots of kiddy options so the parents are able to have a relatively civilized meal while the little scamps are kept quiet gobbling down some rubbish or other. Cass and I had the usual steak set which is pretty good: quite surprisingly good in fact. We had a good chat and then moseyed on home to start the weekend.

Afet5r all the “exertions” of the previous two days, we were quite content to just loll around at home on Sunday, letting the grand final buildup charge us along as the day progressed. We had the internet news going, the various footy radio chat shows and football calls streaming and steadily approached the 5pm (Taipei) kickoff time. I struggled out into the light of day to get some subway sandwiches, but that was about it. We only had a small crowd but it was good fun. A few guys couldn’t make it due to various family, study or overseas conference commitments, but our little crew had a good time. Lewy was first to arrive, then Sean then Wal eventually got in around half time with his promised Alleycats pizzas! Lewy has some strange aversion to cheese, so we heated him up a couple of pies so he wasn’t at all disappointed. After the game, which Melbourne won oh so comprehensively, Wal, Lewy and I had a nightcap down at the “Red Hut” a cool little bar/restaurant just down the road. We all decided that the weekend, although necessary, was just all a bit too much, so I, for one, have great plans to do something vastly more energetic next weekend, and something which does not require compulsory beer drinking as we worship various sporting heroes!

Cass was really busy last week, having to complete progress reports and also make her two monthly visit to the doctor at Veteran’s hospital to check her blood levels. This always results in terrific tales about the Taiwanese hospital system, the (excellent) treatment of we TAS teachers compared to the general populace and various other gems. I must admit I was surprised and impressed the other day when we caught a cab and Cass addressed the driver with some perfect instructions of how to get to school in Chinese! “Where did that come from?” I enquired politely. “You’re not the only one learning Chinese, mate” I believe was the reply! Apparently rather than follow Cassy’s other directions, one of the cabbies had taught her some gold…
Cassy has begun the annual stunning cultural festival of “Rocktober in her class, blasting out Silverchair’s “Straight Line” video on the big screen from her new data projector. 2NX in Newcastle has a lot to blame for: the kids here are certainly in for a rock’n roll education over the next month as a different Oz rock classic greets them as they arrive each day in October. All good fun!

Sorry this is a day late: too much football actually was enough on the weekend! Photos: a classic shot of Virg’n Mary on their red puffy shirt (even in this heat!), a snap from the scooter showing the night market MRT station and the shot of Virgil’s head that is now our “favicon”. A favicon (favourite icon) is that little square thing at the start of the URL address. If it hasn’t changed for you, I think you need to delete internet files to see it….if you can be bothered, it is kind of cute, and pointyhat boardriders has a new favicon too.