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!