This week at work was one of the busiest on record for me and Cass. I had a meeting every single day after school, many of which went late, all of which were excruciatingly long-winded and full of fat: why can’t people just get to the point? Teachers are the very worst, evide4nce of which you can see on these pages…I can string out a story about absolutely nothing into paragraphs of boring verbiage anytime you like (a bit like this paragraph itself!).

Suffice to say that with school encroaching on nearly every waking moment, we jealously guarded our weekend time to be doing exactly what we wanted, no more no less. Friday, I had a beer with Gurecki and Wal and then brought home some KFC, which produced a minor stomach upset for both of us on Saturday.

We watched the test contentedly on Saturday from first ball to stumps before dragging ourselves out into a fairly dreary night, drizzling rain and cold temperatures. We booked some tickets to the movies in our favourite seats then went across the way to Thai Town for a very delicious meal. We got slightly adventurous and while the chicken wrapped in orchid leaves won’t be a regular, it was interesting to try it and the shrimp pancakes along with our usual green curries and spicy beefs etc.

Cloverfield was an unexpected surprise. The movie had us on the very edge of our seats the whole time: hugely exciting, we couldn’t believe what was happening on screen. Seemingly documentary style on a hand held camera, it was a New York filmed like the Blair Witch project meets Godzilla on speed. We were exhausted when the credits rolled from all the excitement, but just loved the ease of stepping into the lift to pick up Blackie the scooter in the car park before motoring home.

Sunday was another luxuriant day of intriguing cricket: the feed superb, the day cold and wet and we were hunkered down! The “girls” slept with Cass on the lounge and we alternated between watching the action with reading our Herald clippings (thanks Mum!)…a very relaxing way to end our very busy week. Just as I was dozing off, Dan rang to see if a surf was in my thoughts. I agreed to meet him and he drove us out to a Green Ball again serving up some very powerful waves along with a killer current. To say I was cold, wet and very, very tired when I got home is an understatement!

After a very long hot shower I’m writing this but I’m going to cut it short. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, it’s nearly 7pm and I can smell beautiful aromas wafting in from the kitchen where Cassy is cooking up some butter chicken. So…see yaaa!
Photos: Temple relief, renovations Taipei style, Taipei night signs and Cass with a street angel!

We lost our good friend, Wal, to cancer this week and have spent the majority of it hoping that his family is coping. We've ruminated on life and are even more steeled in our resolve to not only make the best of it, but to be the best to others that we can be.

I started wracking my brains about 6 months ago as how I could try to emulate or better our tenth wedding anniversary when our 20th rolled around, like it did last Wednesday. The trouble was that the bar had been set fairly high. Ten years ago, we had arrived at the Montparnasse railway station in Paris in the morning and we had settled into our hotel in our very first taste of Paris in the morning. By mid afternoon, I’d shown Cassy a spot between trees from the Louvre forecourt where she saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time and we subsequently ate dinner in the big restaurant in the Tour.

Taipei and a working week…..problematic! First thing was to get a high point…no higher restaurant anywhere in the world than those in the tallest building, the Taipei 101 ands perhaps no better than the restaurant I named, the Panorama (see Taipei Life Panorama story here). I had heard from others that the name in fact had been used and that the restaurant itself provided not only spectacular, jaw-dropping views, but superb Taiwanese/Italian fusion cuisine. Anyway, I booked many months back, had others ring and confirm my booking in Chinese and even snuck away once when we were downtown to confirm it in person.

I had one of Daniel’s flash Mercs waiting at the door and we were whisked down to the Hsin Yi area (“whisked” perhaps doesn’t best describe a 45 minute crawl in peak hour traffic!). The table was indeed the best in the house on a tiny corner position that looked both south and east and no one anywhere near us. The obtuse angles of each section of the 101 meant that you couldn’t see anything below as the window jutted out seemingly unsupported. Clouds drifted by on occasions below where we were sitting (!) momentarily obscuring the dancing lights below. It was pretty wild! The food came in 6 courses and even though we didn’t opt for the finest selection, it was of superb quality. Cass had a glass of Moet and we both enjoyed a bottle of Australian 2004 Green Point Shiraz. I think it was a pretty good attempt at matching the day ten years before…

We gave each other some presents too: somehow, Cassy had squirreled away a massive, very weighty and magnificent tome on the late great Sidney Nolan in her bag when we left in August…no wonder we were over the baggage limit! My beloved Nolan “Kelly” book had been destroyed in the June flood (along with all our other books) so it was perfect choice. Cassy has refused to get any domestic help for years as she worked fulltime, (unlike every single other person here who we know of) to help fund the purchase of her 20th anniversary ring…a spectacular two carat emerald cut diamond. It is a beautiful colour and virtually flawless…even I can appreciate how beautiful it is. She’s absolutely stoked with it.

Better still, we had both booked in our two personal days for the Thursday and Friday, so we were really able to relax and enjoy ourselves. The personal days can be taken any time in the year for any reason at full pay…a great idea and one that obviously everyone is grateful for. We booked the cricket test series some time back and we settled in to watch all the action. It proved to be a super compelling game and we watched nearly every ball right through until Saturday, most of the day, Cass and Virg’n Mary content to snuggle on the lounge together with blankets and throws. We only stirred really to have something to eat! After all these days of slothful laziness, we both feel like getting out and doing something, so we’re actually quite looking forward to work tomorrow.

Last weekend, I neglected to write the blog as I was still a bit “blogged-out” after three marathon sessions in a week to describe our trip. We managed to get out and about a bit and two shots here are of me slurping up some Vietnamese flat noodles at Madame Jill’s Vietnamese restaurant, a great find by Gurecki downtown which he put us on to. Other photos: Cass in the fairy lights at Gonguan, the spectacular toilet at Panorama which looks straight out from 85 floors up, a full size gondola in the middle of the restaurant, before we went out with my Nolan book and Cassy’s new ring.

This is the third and final installment of our holiday blog…the others are posted below.

We thought we’d been rather resourceful and had brought along some cereal and two bowls and spoons for our breakfasts in the morning. The “typical” Taiwanese breakfast is not overly appealing, but we’d been spoilt with some Western style breakfasts till now, although the aboriginals told us definitely, no breakfast”, so we got some milk and coffees from the 7/11 and had a good meal. Luckily for us as the day ended up being a very long drive of many discoveries and not much time to eat!

Our guide book had given some very general indications of places to check for surf, so we set off early from Taitung in search of them and more. The 60 km north of Taitung is rumoured to have Taiwan’s best surf, most spots closely guarded secrets of the Taitung ex-pat surfers. Someone forgot to tell the authors of the rough guide to Taiwan however, and they hinted at a few spots and gave directions to others. The wind had turned offshore early, but we managed to find dozens of spots, the best of which (including the left hand point in one photo above) were not mentioned in any book…in fact we nearly drove straight past a few, but something caught the corner of my eye. Suffice to say that the results of this search are in a slide show at this link, or on pointyhat. One of the spots was the curiously named “Eight Immortals (or ‘Fairies’) Cave, a spot which was opposite a quite well known attraction on the mid east coast. Caves high on the cliff tops, which were originally at sea level, had the remains of eight ancient people discovered in them, hence the name. The point opposite, however is top quality and virtually unknown. Unfortunately, due to the power of the groundswell, my legrope snapped after just a handful of waves and my board got damaged on the rocks on the point…lucky for me it was right at the end of the surfing part of the trip! By the end of this day, I had not only surfed (with just one other person, new friend Jandré from Ilan) a most superb left hand point break, but had “discovered” many, many more, all of which had not a soul in sight! This was extremely exciting for me, but less so for Cassy, so we headed towards the east coast town of Hualien and Taroko Gorge beyond.

Eventually, after a long day driving and surfing and getting extremely excited (me!) about new surf spots, we arrived at the turn off to the acclaimed taroko Gorge area. Most visitors to Taiwan have this firmly penciled in their itineraries and many people we know have described its beauty. One person we know who has left Taiwan after a long stint teaching here and never had a good word to say about anything in Taiwan, grudgingly admitted to me once that Taroko Gorge was “actually quite beautiful”. This faint praise was enough for me to know that it must be absolutely awesome, and so it proved to be.
As we drove up the gorge, the first thing that shocked us was the road. A bit like the Genolan Caves road, but on crack, as the road narrows to just one narrow lane on numerous occasions, huge tourist busses thunder along both ways and the road drops away on a teetering precipice on every turn, of which there are scores. I survived the 16km trip to Tiansheng, the small town that caters to most of the tourists’ accommodation needs, with my heart in my mouth and palpitating wildly, but we arrived safely! We decided to treat ourselves a couple of nights at the grandest option in the gorge, the rather opulent Grand Formosa. Our room overlooked the gorge with gushing torrents flowing over the marble river beds at frightening velocity just below our huge floor to ceiling viewing window…it was the only entertainment we needed! As both dinner and breakfast were supplied we knew that we’d need to plan some healthy hiking for the next day, which we did. After a very satisfactory buffet style dinner, we worked out what we’d try to see the next day.

After another stultifying large meal at breakfast, we definitely needed to hike and hike we did! It was an absolutely glorious day, and even though it was technically winter time and the sun struggled to reach some sections of the gorge as it was so deep, we managed with just jeans and t shirts and strong shoes. We walked the tunnel of nine turns, which provided an amazing snapshot of all the gorge had to offer. Turbulent waters continue to scythe their way through this spectacular marble gore as they have done for millennia. The towering cliffs are dizzying to view as they rise almost vertically from the waters gushing below, past our spot some 50 meters up and continue to soar almost endlessly into the sky: and this goes on for more than 50 km inland! We marveled at the engineering brains of the occupying Japanese army and the courage and feats of the builders, the Truku forced labourers after whose tribe the gorge was named. Typically marble striped boulders as big as semi trailers are strewn along the river bed, testimony to the ferocity of the floodwaters at times, and marble, basalt and other forms of rock form crazy striated patterns as the cliffs rise above.

Our second hike tested every reserve of my ability to fight my fear of heights as we trekked along tiny paths high in the gorge with ridiculously flimsy (in my mind anyway!)fences to stop any plummet into the gorge below. It was adrenaline inducing, exciting and frightening as well as quite exhausting all in one. After some recovery time down the bottom (partly enforced by me flattening the battery of the car by leaving the lights on and seeking “jumper lead” assistance from a bemused, but mercifully accommodating Chinese tourist!) we set off to drive to even higher and more dangerous levels of the gorge via the cross-island highway. As the road passed increasingly darker tunnels, narrower passes and various landslips and waterfalls across the road, even Cassy’s bravery was tested! Suffice to say that I’d come rather close to soiling my pants on the way up and we hadn’t covered even a quarter of the road nor had we reached the highest point! I was pleased to hear Cassy suggest we turn back, and we ended up having a restful hour or two over coffee and cake at the hotel before embarking on yet another mountain climb this time closer to the hotel in the early evening. After an electrifying and surprisingly entertaining aboriginal dance show that evening and more sightseeing of the gorge the following morning our holiday was drawing to a close. Not to be out done the equally jaw dropping sight of the Cingshuie cliffs provided more adrenalin rushes on the drive home (see photo above). The road just frantically gripped onto the cliff face as trucks rumbled along and frightened foreign drivers tried not to look over the edge too much!

You can probably tell how wonderful we consider this holiday by the overly verbose triple installment of blog to discuss it! Seriously though, we have been quite stunned, charmed, surprised and delighted by this adopted home of ours: it is truly “the beautiful isle” as the Dutch named Formosa all those years ago…our only regret is waiting so long to explore it!

This is the second installment discussing our recent trip: the first is posted below.

Down the freeway again and eventually we paid our 11th and final toll on our way south. (The toll is $NT40 a hit, about $A1.40) The first few towns after the freeway were very run down and quite awful looking, not inspiring us at all. However, as the road turned onto the coast, we started to see a proliferation of mobile coffee carts (where we had a break) and endless vistas of a calm and deep blue South China Sea. Kenting town is the second little surf community after South Beach and as we made our way through, the steady increase in lairy colours on the shops, surf outlets and restaurants with a distinctive non Taiwanese feel made an impression. I’d spotted a place on the net that we were keen to check out, so we made our way through town to Shadao and the boutique hotel “Sand”. It was quite funny as the girl working on the desk was Indonesian so we both put our “Chinese as a second or other language” skills to work. Sand is a slick uber modern, minimalist design of stone and wood, with just a handful of rooms, directly facing the southern tip of Taiwan (which is actually walking distance from here). Our room was unreal, fitted out to a sleek modern design with a generous verandah and overlooked a protected white sandy beach…bliss! So we were set for the next 4 days and all, at winter mid week prices, for a ludicrously cheap sum…I actually thought I’d heard the numbers wrong, or had said something stupid.

The surfing Mecca, Jialeshuei, was a short drive round the tip to the east coast, so we began a series of trips round there during the day and had a recovery read or relax in the afternoon, before heading out to sample some fantastic meals at night. For more Jialeshuei info and lots of shots of both it and the east coast check out pointyhat here…it was awesome! Meals at night were authentic cantina style Mexican, Thai food like it was being served on the beach in Chiang Mai and Tex Mex varieties that made the mouth water. We ate a lot and it was good! In fact, Kenting had a real Thai feel to it overall: it was ultra cool, had lots of different cuisines and quirky little bars and restaurants and endless stalls and markets lining the streets at night giving it a vibrant carnival atmosphere: we felt super relaxed and content down there. We toured around by day and by night: we witnessed the amazing Chuohua fires at night, natural gas hissing from the ground on fire. We saw the preserved walled town and gates in the same area. We drove around the languid shores of the national park’s south west corner, gazing from lookouts and treading along deserted white sand beaches. We travelled along in a tiny blue truck with no shock absorbers as a tour guide told us in incomprehensible Chinese all about the animal shapes of the rocks on the Jialeshuei coast and we even helped some mainland Chinese people celebrate their walk out to Taiwan’s most southern point (see photo)!

Our plan after relaxing for a few days in Kenting was to slow crawl up the east coast and check out a few more surf spots. On the way to Taitung, the east coasts biggest city, we motored through fresh forests and discovered deserted beaches. The car snaked its way along mountain ridges and tracked through lush valleys, sometimes encountering little aboriginal villages along the way. We stopped and investigated any point of interest and made frequent detours down tiny side roads and tracks. The day of travel was very eye-opening: this part of Taiwan is just gorgeous. Taitung saw us (eventually) find the Aboriginal Hostel where we were keen to stay. With beautifully decorated Yami fishing boats in the forecourt it offered spotlessly clean, slightly jaded but interesting rooms, and was staffed by aboriginals of lots of different tribes. We had an interesting Chinese/Japanese/English check in which was wildly amusing to all concerned, dropped off our bags and set out to make use of the hotel’s free bicycles. Taitung has a plethora of bike trails winding through the outskirts of the city, through rainforests and around lakes, most ending up at a sculpture park right on the beach. Cassy was a natural after more than 30 years of not gracing a bike, and we cycled for many kilometers and had an extremely pleasant afternoon. Our dinner that evening was our first disappointment, even though a minor one. The food at the large café we went to left a fair bit to be desired, the place stunk of smoke necessitating us sitting outside on a chilly verandah and the waiter was surly beyond belief, insisting on speaking only Taiwanese to us! Anyway, not to worry, the next day was to be a trawl along the mid east coast to find some of these rumoured secret surf spots of quality, perhaps ending up at the famous Taroko Gorge…I was getting very excited! (More to follow in a final installment in the next couple of days…)