Through the week, I accompanied the kiddies to Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall to view the annual lantern festival which marks the end of the Chinese New Year period. When I say “accompany”, I mean led the little champions onto buses then down into the bowels of an MRT. station we’d never seen before, try to buy tokens for 130 kids, then usher same downstairs, spread them along the platform before urging them on to the train without leaving anyone behind as the doors whoosh shut automatically after a very brief stop. I’m tired just writing that sentence! Then we did it all again on the way back!

Ostensibly, it is another cog in the explore Taiwan curriculum machine we try to oil each 3rd semester; this visit is also about familiarizing the kids with public transport. They get a kick out of it I suppose, but I often wonder if anyone is standing by with charged paddles to kick me back to life as I narrowly avoid having a heart attack every time it happens. Oh well, all good fun, I suppose! The lanterns were a bit of a fizzer this year, down in size, number and quality after moving from Chiang Kai Shek’s memorial Hall. It’s all a political humdrum really, city government squabbling with national government over whether “Chiankas” was a dirty murdering war criminal or alternatively, Taiwan’s benevolent father figure to whom they all owe their lives. Speaking of which, there is a similar massive statue of Sun Yat Sen at his hall, which appears remarkably less benevolent to my untrained eye….hmmm! The same high stepping, shiny helmeted guards spin around each other with the changing of the guard, variously stomping their high shiny boots and spinning their saber fitted rifles round with mind boggling precision. If they breathed fire, I thought at the time that it wouldn’t be dissimilar to a good Kiss concert.

We’ve had a slightly more enjoyable week this week, although Cassy is still suffering the lingering effects of her cold which kept her pretty quiet. I decided to go with Lewy downtown on Friday night to see one of our faculty bands play. QvQ plays an impressive mix of mainly original songs interspersed with some classic rock, including one song (brilliantly performed) by my old favourites, The Sunnboys. We had a few beers with the boys after their set and had a great time. I reverted to my youth by yelling out requests to a completely bemused American Cowboy country duo playing with a drum machine: they’re probably wondering what Khe Sanh is…..they did actually say at one point, “I don’t know who this Kay Sands is buddy, but she aint with us!”

We got some local green onion pancake in Ker Qiang Rd for lunch, but it must have had some powerful bug caught in it somewhere as we both ended up in the toilet in the evening! We got some Alleycat pizza takeaway for tea and settled in to watch loads of trashy TV…it was great! (Australia’s Biggest Loser mainly: the only show where you can scoff down loads of chocolate and biscuits with a cup of tea and not feel too guilty because you’re not actually that bad yet!)

I got up early and made my way to the Pillbox for a surf and although the tide was pretty low and the conditions a bit edgy, I met up with a local Taiwanese guy and we communicated with a mix of his and my rudimentary skills in each others language. We went out together, the surf built and improved and I ended up staying out for nearly 3 hours and having my best surf since the big round island trip. It was powerful clean and fast…just like a real surf, I was, and still am pretty amped from this session! About a dozen guys were out by the time I headed in including an eclectic mix of two Taiwanese Americans, 3 local guys including Jeff, myself and JB, an American surfer who I often run into out in the water at some spot on the island. Check more on this day here.

Photos today are of various cute mice lanterns (it is the year of the rat) some with 101 in the background, some tiny little kids in front of one display, the precision guards at SYS and some awesome powerful surf earlier today.

We almost literally did nothing this weekend past. On Sunday we settled down and watched the cricket one dayer between Australia and India, but that’s about it. The weather continued in a bitter vein, when it wasn’t raining it was bleak, uninviting and freezing. Cassy caught a cold which aided to our sorry state, but she feels a little better today. Added to that an extremely busy work schedule during the week and a complete lack of rideable surf on the weekend, it wasn’t our best here in Taipei.

In saying that however, even though the week opened today in a similar hectic fashion, the rain has lifted momentarily and all is looking a little better with the world. As I am at a total loss for a theme this week, I’ll talk about hair! As Cassy’s hair remains in short fashion that suits her very well, my locks are gradually edging downwards. For no particular reason except perhaps a last hurrah of flowing locks before the inevitable male pattern baldness really begins to take hold, my hair has been growing for some months now. I’m realizing as each day goes by why I enjoyed that crew cut for so long. Especially in this high humidity, my hair is starting to curl and wave all around my head in a distinctly hard to contain manner. I turn into such a girl with longer hair: I get annoyed at wind blowing it around, seek the dreaded “product” to try to contain it in certain areas and find the endless washing and shampooing an incredible chore! I even had to go and buy a “decent brush” to maintain the fine coif! All in all it’s extremely time-consuming (read: takes longer than 5 seconds to look after), seems to appeal to older women (“Your hair looks lovely, David!” from my boss and various other vintage colleagues doesn’t go down well) and has to be hidden under a hat if I go out in public without incessant coiffing. I’m pretty much over it!!

Photos: Cassy and David and Virg’n Mary when we rocked in from work half an hour ago.

Somehow, we’ve managed to go to bed later and later and subsequently get up later and later every day this week. The arctic temperatures, drizzling rain and frigid winds have certainly helped, as have the lack of other incentives to leave the house. Chinese New Year is a time for travel to the family home wherever it may be on the island, so shops and businesses shut down and the roads become choked with traffic as everyone heads home for food and crackers and fun. We on the other hand, luxuriated in some fantastic downtime and lots of rest, a perfect start to what will be a very hectic next 8 weeks.

In a couple of months, auditors will visit the school and put a fine tooth comb through the mane of English and ESL. It is a regular review that happens every seven years, but unfortunately occurs in my watch. I have been thinking of ditching the leadership role for a little while and I am now regretting not pulling the plug last year to avoid all this hassle! Cass will be involved as well in the English area and we will both be building up over the next few weeks, gathering “evidence”, materials and making sure everything is ship-shape for this visit. I have already made and distributed a number of surveys and started to gather heaps of things for our department, but there is a lot more to do yet. They will arrive the week after our next break in a couple of months, so between now and then we’ll be very busy.

So, this week, we’ve really viewed as a breather before the race begins in earnest. We’ve bought the rights to the one day series and started the break by having nearly all the Aussie boys from school over here to watch the Twenty/20 cricket. Actually, we had all the Aussie boys on island except one, that exception being a very strange case of self-imposed isolation: quite sad, really. Anyway, even though the game wasn’t great, we had a very convivial time and it set the scene for a terrific break. We have watched all the one dayers that have been on since, including one very interesting one today!

We whizzed downtown when there was a small lifting of the more objectionable weather on Wednesday and decided to go back to one of our favorite old haunts, the Core Living Mall. We used to hang out here with great regularity some years back when it first opened, enjoying its beauty and wonderful VIP cinema. Since more magnificent centres have opened all over the city, including right here in our suburb, Tienmu, we haven’t been down there. It was really interesting to get back there and we enjoyed a tasty dinner at one of our old favorites, “Bird”. We checked out a rather finer dining alternative called “Lawry’s” for a later date, perhaps when we’re dressed up a little better!

Cass suggested that we go down to Beitou on the train to the Royal Host yesterday after I had an ill fated surf run. It is always fun to go to this Japanese “family” restaurant and it serves up one of the best steaks in town, a good thick slice of premium New Zealand fillet. The surf run was organized by Dan, but I followed him out as I needed to give the car a run. Our latest big surf spot, Green Ball, was a heaving cauldron and was not inviting at all. The swell was huge, but unrideable, swell and winds all coming in the wrong directions. Dan and I both agreed that it was the coldest day and the biggest swell that we had experienced here in Taiwan…it was bitter! In fact, this whole Chinese New Year has been bitterly cold: every day in single figures and dipping down to around 6 degrees yesterday. One thing that has warmed us up however is Cassy's cooking: not only home cooked lemon butter on the toast this week but a great big pot of minestrone...I was very spoiled!

Tragically, we report yet another death this week. On Tuesday, in an open water swim down at Kenting (our Christmas holiday spot), one of our male upper school colleagues drowned. We don’t know the details till we arrive at school tomorrow, but he is married with two young children and has been at the school for a couple of years. Another tragedy: I hope this awful string of news can come to an end with this week’s notice.

Photos: Some shots of the cold and bleak, Cass in the mall, Wol with nose suds, Cass and little friend, me showing the 5000 varieties of soy sauce (there’s another shelf behind this one!!)

This week started in a very similar fashion to the last, both Cassy and I dragging ourselves home in the fading dusk on a Monday cold and drizzly, hopefully not setting the tone for the week. We were shocked as we came up the stairs to see our neighbour, Theresa, being supported by her partner, Joe, down the stairs. She looked awful, could barely stand and was obviously very ill. She has lived above us for some 2 years now, an Englishwoman working at the European School. We helped her out with all the neighborhood routines ages ago and occasionally stop and have a chat about things when we can. We do, however, very rarely see her. I raced down to Ker Qiang Rd, hailed a cab and directed it back to our building. We were able to maneuver Theresa into the cab and despite further offers to help or go with them which were politely declined we didn’t hear more about this, even though we were quite concerned and mentioned it every day.

When I returned from my Chinese lesson on Thursday night, Cass met me with some very bad news. Theresa had died of cancer related illness on Tuesday night and had been cremated on Thursday. Joe invited us up for a small wake that evening, but as her family had only just flown in from England, we didn’t want to intrude. I did, subsequently, catch up with her brother and son-in-law on Friday night after we watched the cricket, which was good, because apart from anything else, I was able to piece together a little of the last few months. We were unaware of her illness as she wanted to keep it private and she was quite well even up to last Friday evening when she had a violin lesson. Suffice to say, it was shocking and upsetting news for us, especially coming at a time when we’ve just farewelled another friend.

Friday was a pre-arranged day round at our place to watch the Twenty/20 game. Lewy and Wal and Naden and Andrew (all Australian teachers at our school) came round to enjoy the game with me and Cass, with Gurecki needing the game explained to him as it unfolded! We had some beers, Lewy ran a “book” and fielded bets on all sorts of different scenarios and even though the game was a bit one sided, we all enjoyed it immensely. The party pies were consumed with great gusto at innings break and by the time the game ended, most of us felt the need to continue on round the corner at the Wo Soo bar for a couple more. We had a great chat about all things related to home to continue the theme of the night until I spent a fair time with Theresa’s relatives when they came in later.

The weekend has been very decadent for me as we watched even more cricket today in the form of the washed out first one dayer between Australia and India, but not so for Cassy! We have this week off for Chinese New Year and, as usual, the temperatures have plummeted and outside activities look decidedly uninviting. Already this weekend, Cass has cooked up a batch of her famous lemon butter (which I’m looking forward to eating on my toast!) and a great pot of minestrone soup for lunches this week. She also cooked a mouthwatering version of chicken chasseur for dinner tonight so I’m feeling extremely spoilt and lazy!

Cassy is going to meet Kristin to go downtown shopping tomorrow and plans to wear her long woolen coat as the weather is indicating near single figure temperatures for tomorrow….almost unheard of here in Taipei. We haven’t any firm plans for the week, but I can tell you one thing for sure: the surf will have to be stellar to tempt me out in this weather!

Photos: Life needs to be reaffirmed for us at the moment: what better than a cute cat and some of my kiddies: they're always cute and full of life!