As the academic year winds down, both the workload at school and the social whirl ramp up a few notches. All sorts of end of year social functions are on and reports, letters, recommendations and last gradings are happening at work. The Gurecki Five-O was on this Saturday and that has been the focus for my weekend pretty much, and Cass has been a bit of a “Five-O” widow.

Cassy had her steering committee end of year dinner on Thursday night and I trotted off to my Chinese lesson, then used a bit of gold to order myself some food and drink at a little local red lantern restaurant up the way. My meal was delicious, freshly cooked fare straight off a swishing wok and the “three cups chicken” and shrimp fried rice were pretty good choices. There were about 10 massive whole cloves of garlic roasted in with the chicken, so I’m not sure how powerfully I smelt afterwards! It was cool sitting on the tiny stools and eating local. Cass, on the other hand, had an altogether different experience. She traveled down to the exquisite buffet at the Far Eastern hotel and feasted on all sorts of beautiful morsels. For this group, however, the champagne is always the big highlight and the Moet was basically on a free flow all night. So much so that the bar bill was greater than the food bill apparently. Cass has actually discovered the way not to get a hangover: drink the same thing all night in reasonable moderation; as long as it is quality French champagne…I’ll have to try it!

I went out to the Woo So bar with Gurecki on Friday night, ostensibly to deliver a few vital components for the Saturday evening such as iPod connections and giant posters and a last minute check that we had everything booked and organized. It was a gorgeous spring afternoon so we ended up (much against my better judgement) having a few beers after confirming all the details. Cass and I ate in on Friday night and got to bed early ready for the big day following.

I organized the “Gurecki Five-o for Mark and he has had an extended birthday festival for his 50th extending from his surprise visit to Hong Kong for two nights organized by Himiko, his wife, right through to 10 days later when we embarked on our big day of celebrations yesterday. We went to the 147 paintball theme park in a bushland setting way out in the back of Neihu. It was an absolute blast and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. Some of the guys had been before so knew some “special” tactics, but I quickly got up to speed when those little paintballs go whizzing past your goggles at the speed of light! Today, I’ve got a few battle scars: I have some impressive looking welts where I was hit a few times and various other bruises and scrapes. The simulated battlefield action was very exhilarating and the overalls, helmets and goggles didn’t really feel solid enough protection. We slithered over muddy embankments, ran madly between shelters and occasionally had to lie in quagmires to avoid being zapped by the other teams’ rain of fire. The fact that it is a little painful when you get hit is a real added incentive to get some solid cover! All I can say is, I cannot begin to imagine what a real battle situation must be like: the word terrifying comes to mind. We were all a ball of sweat by the end of various games and a little late to get home for the evening’s entertainment.

After a rushed trip back to shower and throw some dinner down, Shaun and I shared a cab across to Qiyan to the Woo So bar for the evening’s festivities. We had 15 paintballers, most of whom continued through to the night and a whole cast of others, who had just signed up for the evening show. We all had our specially designed T shirts (by me!) on and enjoyed beer in table tappers all night along with regularly replenished plates of food: chips, fish pieces, popcorn and the essential famous Woo So squid balls. These table tappers are just fantastic inventions. They are 3 litres and have a little tap at the bottom. There is a core which is filled with ice, and then the tapper can be filled with beer behind the bar. It then sits on the table and you can pour your own icy beer whenever you want! We’d cut a great set price deal with the very cool bar owner, Nick and the night was a huge success and everyone had an absolute ball. I read a special Gurecki Five Ode, which had been written by Ross in New Zealand and sent to me by email. It was hilarious, and then Gurecki had an opportunity to say a few words as well. We had Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple booming out from Mark’s plugged in shuffle and Nick even arranged a mildly erotic dancer for Gurecki (mild meaning she danced, without taking her clothes off!) which was very funny and lots of fun. Everyone, but most importantly the guest of honour, had a great time: it was one of the best social events we’ve had for years.
Photos: some paintball and some Gurecki Five-O. Best of all, a slide show of paintball and Gurecki Five-O is here.

The last two days of the week were very tiring for me at Camp Taiwan, but as you can see, the kiddies love it, so I suppose it can't be all bad! We had an absolutely stellar weekend weather wise and we made the most of it by getting out to the east coast via the 13km tunnel(!) and enjoying some top class surf at Wushi harbour wall beach. We hired an umbrella for Cass to escape the blazing sun while I went and had one of the best surfs of the year (see above).

We also got across to the pictures and saw "21" which was pretty cool and great to see some of these institutions up close that we always hear so much about (MIT, Harvard etc). We ate out a lot at all sorts of different establishments and everything is right in the world.

We've both had pretty big weeks (and another half since I wrote the blog last, sorry to my faithful readers: all two of you!) and are building, building for another. The massive Gurecki Five-O is on this Saturday and we're hosting a few of the boys for state of origin tonight. Our cable got cut off in the middle of the night last night, so I've been frantically trying to rectify that before the big game: technician did arrive and it has been fixed: whew! Have to love Taiwan service....

Who said I couldn't write a non-verbose blog entry! Photos: kids and adults having fun at camp, Wushi waves of quality.
Home soon....!

This week at school was strangely eventful building up to a huge weekend. The first two days of the week saw me at home recovering from a bad dose of the flu while the third and fourth days saw Cassy staying home nursing a face burnt by an exploding potato! The fifth day of the week saw both of us meeting and greeting and catching up with various old friends and colleagues who had flown in to attend the mega Cathy Funk farewell on the Saturday night, as well as me getting to hold a real, used in the torch relay, Beijing Olympic Game’s torch!

My two days at home saw me wallowing around feeling sorry for myself mainly, cancelling my Monday Chinese lesson and watching some movies. On Tuesday night Cassy was heating some potatoes in the microwave and when she set the plate on the bench, one of them exploded all over her, including right in her face. I raced in and Cass was standing there shocked, so I grabbed her head and put her straight under the running cold tap where she stayed for about 20 minutes. We then kept her cheeks moist with a cold moist washer and scootered over to mad old Dr. Tseng down on Chung Shan, sect 6. He was pretty good, and gave Cass some cream, but only after inquiring after her bowels and trying to give her aspirin, which she had to point out three times might not go so well with other blood thinning medications! He really is quite a spaz, but as long as you don’t need a diagnosis, he’s a very quick and easy source of first aid! Cass had to stay indoors for a couple of days, her face blistered slightly and reddened, but now it is pretty much OK again after she slathered cream all over it for a few days. Whew!

On Friday, as I wandered down to another section of the school in the afternoon, I came across big Garry, the MS deputy holding an Olympic torch! He was talking to one of the kid’s mothers who had brought it in to show the kids after her husband had run with it the week before in Beijing. It is quite beautiful, with a pattern of red scrolls etched into the ergonomic, aluminum torch. It is quite light, but very well balanced for running with, and an extra little touch is that even the grill where the gas comes out at the top of the torch is shaped in the scroll pattern….a very cool experience to hold and examine this torch up close! Also on Friday, we saw and spoke to a cavalcade of out of town visitors, some of whom we hadn’t seen for about 5 years or even more. I won’t name them all, but there were people from Doha, Dubai, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Mumbai, Manila, Hong Kong, the US and many other spots. Two of the people we really wanted to see, our old superintendent from Germany and DJ from Myanmar couldn’t come, DJ for the obvious reason of the devastating cyclone that just hit his country. It was great to catch up with this diverse group, although we didn’t manage to get much work done in between classes. They had all poured into Taipei as the doyen of the middle school, the principal with the most amazing longevity I’ve ever heard about, was having her retirement dinner/farewell at the American Club in China, Taiwan branch on Saturday night.

I had some beers on Friday night with Coombsy in from Hong Kong and a stack of the other visiting males down at the Red Hut later on Friday night, along with our usual crew of local suspects. On Saturday, Dan enticed me out to the Green Ball for a surf and it was excellent, both of us getting some great waves with little competition, slashing them up in some rare form (for me at least!) After paddling against this rip for about 3 hours I’d had a real workout, but needed to regroup for the evening ahead. Dress was semi formal, so I was suited up and Cass frocked and off we went. The night was actually quite pleasant, mainly because Ms. Funk herself would be horrified if the food was “pig at a trough” style. She is very classy and hence the fine food and wine (all on the school’s tab…even better!) and the fine dressing. We listened to a succession of amazing tributes: it was quite stunning to hear some of the best leaders in education worldwide tell how they would often defer to Cathy’s greater judgement, or rely on her as a mentor and confidante. Time and time again from these very successful people, a pattern certainly emerged: I wouldn’t want to be following in her footsteps, that’s for sure. After some extremely clever work by the two resident drama/singing experts on faculty, the other bizarre “Broadway” acts by the admin team fell fairly flat, but it was all in good fun and the guest of honour stated that it was amongst the best nights she had ever had, so it was worthwhile in the end.

Today, we breakfasted late after a sleep in then had a magnificent lunch at “The Top”, an amazing open air restaurant complex perched high, high above Tienmu on Yangminshan. A Bedouin tent setup and cushions, umbrellas and chaise lounges all add to the relaxing effect: yet the stunning cityscape is the real draw card. We had a sumptuous lunch and decadently stayed and chatted for many hours, lingering over three courses and coffees, all the while soaking in the revitalizing view. We’ve had a magic weekend…you can probably get the vibe! Photos: out last night, at "The Top".

The latter part of last week and the weekend was an absolute whirl of social activity. As we approach the end of the school year it begins about now, with every weekend filled to the brim with all sorts of visits, farewells, end-of-year celebrations, you name it. First cab off the rank this year was a visit by Josh and Kristin, who flew in from Singapore on Thursday afternoon and flew out again on Sunday afternoon. In between times we’ve had quite the catch-up!

Josh is the young Aussie who worked for a few years here on grade 5 before following Kristin down to Singapore for the past year. He’s an intelligent and charming young fella and some people have the tendency to underestimate him: he’s a very intelligent and mature man with a rather knockabout and friendly outer skin. Kristin, his fiancée is a music teacher at Singapore American School, but her real talent and focus is opera singing. She has a stunning voice and is on the cusp of breaking into the big time. Even with such a superb instrument, I think she has had some self doubt, but Josh has encouraged her to follow her dreams and she is scoring smaller jobs in Singapore and is set for a huge audition with the Australian Opera Company in Sydney in July. By the way, she’s also an American!

We’d arranged to meet for a quiet catch up on Thursday night, but an entourage of strange mix and large proportions had attached itself to him mollusclike at a small function at school. By the time he met up with me and Wal, there were all sorts of human chattels hanging off him, and although we managed to have a bit of a chat, we arranged to meet a bit farther away from school on the Friday afternoon. Friday was fantastic: we met at the Qiyan Wo Soo and just Wal and I, along with Lewy and Gurecki managed to have a great long chat and catch-up. This afternoon became evening and we had some dinner, then resisted the “pleasures” of a big rooftop party that was going on to head to the Green bar to watch the AFL. It wasn’t on, but we ran into some other ex TAS teachers down there, Lee and Russell, so that was also quite interesting. A few partygoers filtered down the hill and before you know it, it was scarily late and well past our use by date! As I wandered home in the early hours, I got a text message from Mum in Moscow: I’m quite used to getting same from mates all around Asia or Australia, but got a little shock at this one! It was great to hear she was going well.

In the meantime on Friday, Cass had also been very busy. She is in the yucky process of getting her wisdom teeth filled in a hope of staving off removal for a time yet. She was due to see Dr Fu on Friday afternoon but also had her regular book club meeting and wanted to get her hair cut. She managed to race home from school in the afternoon, get her hair cut by "Bessy in rat alley" (don't ask!), rush home to dust some hair off, then off to the dentist. After the dentist, she headed straight off to La Luna Vague, a little French restaurant in the backstreets here, recommended so long ago by her friend Kathy, and yet not visited. Apparently the food and wine was superb and every dish that came out was exclaimed over by the "bookies".

Saturday was a lie low kind of day. Somehow, Josh and Kristin (young I suppose!) managed to head over to the beach with Shaun and Katie, where they in turn met Brandon and Becky. I’m glad I didn’t try to make that: I was a bit seedy, but also just getting the first signs of a cold/flu, which was making me a little sorry for myself! We managed to watch all sorts of football then got some Fangs takeaway for tea.

Sunday, we were due to meet them for breakfast with Wal down at Wendel’s, but my symptoms were quite bad by then. We decided to just meet for lunch as had been pre-arranged by the Koo family in honour of Josh being back. I drugged myself up and we headed off up to the low reaches of Yangminshan to the Koo compound. Andre and Jana seem quite fascinated by Australians and we are regularly invited to attend dinners etc at their company or house. I have a suspicion that we aren’t into the toadying mentality of many other foreigners here and the locals could be quite sycophantic around them. They are exceptionally lovely people and incredible hosts: I suppose with dizzying wealth it does bring out the very worst in some people with whom they have to associate: I genuinely believe they feel a lot more relaxed around the more egalitarian Aussie approach to things. I’ve mentioned this rarified living before, but this was the first time we’d been to their home: it was quite staggering. I was actually fascinated more by the original impressionist paintings on the wall than anything else…hard to believe! After our prelunch drinks of free flowing vintage 2000 Veuve Clicquot rose, we were ushered into the dining room to be served course after course of the most incredible foods, some of which, even though we recognized the fine preparation, were not quite our “cup of tea”. The main courses were accompanied by the most sublime Chateau Latour red, a pure Cabernet sauvignon or a large percentage cab sav to my guess, but with an amazing richness to it, more like a shiraz. This wine was just pouring freely from large crystal decanter jugs: each time your glass got near empty, a waiter would fill it up again. Anyway, I’m sure you get the idea: suffice to say, it was yet another almost “out of body” experience here in Taipei! I have stayed home from work today to nurse my flu, but may well battle out to my Chinese lesson later as I missed it on Thursday as Josh was arriving. Everywhere we went, I forgot to take my camera this weekend, which was a shame, but I squeezed a couple of shots out right at the end. Cass and I just back from lunch, Josh and Kristin waiting to be picked up by Daniel and the girls on top of the filing cabinet(still)!