Cassy endured a rather unenviable week after hearing that her camp had been postponed due to the ferocity of typhoon Sinlaku. On Monday, virtually unplanned as they were meant to be away all week, she and her teaching partner Kristin had the pleasure of the new MS principal observing their lesson for 100 minutes! A trifle insensitive to the realities of planning, apparently the lesson was a huge hit anyway, but talk about unneeded pressure! In fact, we both had a pretty tough week after being basically kept indoors for the entire previous weekend.Monday was a wash out in terms of any outdoor activity, but I managed to maniacally do the “steps” on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as well as yesterday and today. Today, I went all the way along the trail as well and headed up the road to the cultural college. It has always been rather awe inspiring, perched as it is on the edge of a precipice at the top of the first big peak of Yangminshan, but we never realized the bustling little town it hid just behind. As the trail took me higher, it also took me about a kilometre past the college, so when I reached the top of the mountain I doubled back. There are lots of little streets catering to the students: art supplies shops and coffee and drinks outlets along with heaps of “cheap eats”. The uni crowd tends toward a slightly more adventurous restaurant scene, so even though cheap, I saw lots of curries and pizzas etc. After all these exertions in the blazing midday sun, I was ready for the long traipse home through some more shaded tracks. The monkey trail is really very relaxing and is just high enough up in the mountains to provide a slightly cooler air. That combined with a light breeze on a very sweaty body and clothes and the sound of running water from the various creeks and water course running close to the trail and steps, it’s a very pleasant ambiance.
We went up to Lewy’s on Friday night to watch the AFL semifinal, and he had pulled out all the culinary stops, including making his famous chili prawns which are delicious and supplied great bucket loads of the Colonel’s finest, always a winner!
Saturday was another scorcher and after my steps adventure, I went and picked up some tickets to the movies, we had some Subway for lunch, and then headed up to the cinema. We had pretty high hopes for “Righteous Kill” as it co-starred De Niro and Pacino, two of our all time favourites and two of the best at their craft. It was pretty good entertainment, and those two managed to drag the script up from a B to an A-. They just seem to do things so well, so effortlessly, it really shows up the glaring deficiencies of some other so-called actors and directors these days. On our way out we stocked up on some blanc DVDs at FNAC, along with a fancy arm holder thingy for my ipod Touch: it’s something I’ve been after for ages. I joined Wal and Brandon round the corner at Rourkey’s on Saturday afternoon after the pictures for the other AFL semi before getting home to watch the Melbourne Brisbane NRL semi with Cass. She cooked us up a great dinner and we watched the late news and the football before getting to bed reasonably early.
Cassy woke today with one of her infrequent, but traditionally vicious sore throats, so we abandoned our plans to get to the beach and scout out the remnants of any existing swell from the swell last week. We slept in a little and I tried to find her special antibiotics when I went out, but either chemists were shut or they just didn’t have the goods. After listening to hours of Chinese while walking today (using the fancy new armband) I was in an expansive language mood and found out that the drug didn’t seem to be made in Taiwan and people marveled at this “wonder” drug from Australia (pretty much just because everything on the box was written in English I think!)
I haven’t taken the camera out at all this week or on the weekend (it’s been quite liberating!) so I’ll include just a few from recent times. My 3rd grade team this year, the dreaded (but peaceful!) steps and "our" new racehorse, Dancing Stars! (Yes, true story, but only 1%...more to follow next week)