We’ve had a busy week and are expecting a similar one next week as the term hurtles towards semester break. Reports to be written, meetings to attend and normal teaching commitments will have us very ready for a holiday. We’re going to Sumba, to stay at the Nihiwatu resort there. It’s an unusual trip for us as we don’t go for the 5 star luxury as a rule, but this place with its combination of sensational accommodation and food with exclusive access to one of the world’s very best waves was impossible to ignore. We hope it lives up to its rep! We’ll fly into Denpasar on Saturday; spend a day and a night in Kuta, then take a tiny domestic plane for an hour’s flight to Sumba. We just can’t wait to get there.

Dan is going downtown on Tuesday to pick up my board (along with several of his) which has been getting its tail section reshaped and fixed after its heavy beating at Nan Ao. I’ll get to Indonesia not having surfed on it for ages, so I hope I get a day or two of gentler swell to get used to it again.

Cass had a great Saturday night out on the town. On of our colleagues gave us two tickets to a piano recital at the National Concert theatre, I was otherwise engaged, so Cass arranged to go with her friend, Kristin. They booked in for dinner at a Chilean restaurant near the theatre, “Salsa”, and had a superb meal with just the right touch of class without being too stuffy and formal. The pair of pianists was celebrating playing together for 30 years, a remarkable achievement. The concert was held in the outwardly impressive concert hall and the interior design was just as impressive and comfortable. They thoroughly enjoyed the concert by Wille and Yeh, the piano duet seamless and playing music for two pianos by Poulenc, Brahms, Rachmaninov and Bach.

I was also out and about on Saturday night, but at the polar opposite end of the cultural scale! We introduced Taipei to the concept of the Santa Claus pub crawl and had a rollicking good time. Little kiddies on the street were amazed to see the 10 or so Santas walking along and we took the time to talk to them all and sent them all away very excited. The night was a great success and even though we only had a relatively small contingent (mainly because of other end-of-year parties etc), I’m suspecting that if we do it again next year the numbers might swell when word leaks out about the great time we had.

Today we saw the rather forgettable, although it was enjoyable at the time, movie called Law Abiding Citizen: Janie Foxx was very smooth. After, we took advantage of the stellar weather to go for a spin over to Beitou on the scooter, where we checked out a big clothing warehouse. We’re glad we did as though even though it had endless racks of rubbish, it also had some great gems hidden amongst them. We spent very little and came away with two Ralph Lauren jackets, Cassy’s a pure wool tweedy style blazer and mine a plain black jacket with a parka lining. We also bought a fine knit wool jumper and a cotton shirt for me for work…
We’re both looking forward to our Papa Poulet chicken for tea, about now, so I’m finishing! Photos: Cass and Kristin at Salsa, inside the concert hall, Cass in the clothing warehouse and some santas on the loose!

We’ve been here so long now, that it’s easy to forget that there are still some really weird and quirky things going on in Taipei that we’ve slowly got used to over the years. Many, many other things have changed a lot and I suspect will continue to change at a rapid pace, but there are some customs and cultural peculiarities that I’ve been thinking about that stand the test of time.

We don’t have a garbage bin. We put the garbage outside the kitchen door on the back fire escape till one or other of us gets motivated to take it to the garbage truck. These days, we recycle nearly everything into separate bundles, so at any one time, apart from the slowly rotting stuff outside, we have lots of huge bags full of “clean” stuff, like paper, flat plastic, bottled plastic, glass, styrofoam etc. It’s all quite hilarious. We could do even more, but we’ve drawn the line at the red and blue buckets. You are meant to put all your food scraps and waste into little coloured buckets, one for pig swill and the other for stuff the pigs won’t eat. Then, at regular intervals, we’re meant to take these buckets and empty them into bigger buckets which are slung behind the garbage truck.

The garbage trucks can’t get into all the tiny little lanes and alleys here, so we have to take the refuse to the main roads, where there are drop off points. We have to wait with our bags and throw them into the back of the truck. You cannot leave your stuff for others and you need to use special bags from the 7/11 that have our district marked on them. It’s kind of cool because it becomes a user pay system and means that the local people are recycling to the max to avoid paying for more bags. The amount of stuff some people can jam into these blue bags is unbelievable! The little recycling truck follows the big truck and we then wait in line to deliver our recycling. All the different categories have different days and they never overlap. Luckily we have an old lady who intercepts us and takes our paper and plastic bottles, but she’s not keen on the styrofoam, flat plastic or glass, so we take that ourselves. When there is a decent crowd waiting for the truck, or it arrives a touch late, the wild scenes have to be seen to be believed: I’ve been hit in the head with flying blue bags and little old ladies have almost knocked me down in their haste to get their bags into the truck. The other bizarre thing is that the truck plays various classical tunes through its speakers and the unwary or uninitiated foreigner has been known to rush out to try to buy an ice-cream!

Car parking is at a premium in Taipei City. The oft heard rumour is that there are not enough parking spots, public and private, to house all the cars in Taipei, so the city relies on a certain number always being driven around at any given moment. People who live in our lane have taken to using white paint on the road to paint their own car parks on the tar and used Chinese characters to denote a private parking place, hoping people will leave the space free for them. The incredible thing is that it actually seems to work. About a year ago, one of our neighbours actually installed a huge heavy steel gate that he could swing across “his” park…on a public thoroughfare! We’re lucky that we have a park in the school’s basement car park, but that necessitates of course, that we need to get to school to use the car. Sometimes we walk, sometimes we scooter, but all the time it is an inconvenience many at home would wonder at. If we need to park anywhere in the city environs, it is just about impossible to find a park on the street anywhere. Basement paid parking is the go and entrepreneurs all over the city have made lots of money in this business alone.

Well, just a couple of things: there are plenty more, so I might re-visit this theme from time to time. We had a super lazy weekend this weekend: we’re in the throes of grading stuff, writing reports etc, so took the opportunity to do plenty of that while watching a couple of days of cricket. We went for a stroll in the perfect weather here this afternoon, but apart from that, have pretty much done nothing: bliss! The cricket picture has been sensational because we had to get our computer helper/ super hero Dick here through the week as our beaming system from computer to TV had gone on the blink. He installed a new high frequency job which is amazing: any streaming on computer now looks like a regular TV show when we beam it across. Photos are a bit sad today: lots of fish down at Carrefour (you can tell we’re in Asia) and a shot of one end of the new beamer. I’ve just finished a sensational autobiography of Gary Paulsen’s first 10 years….couldn’t put it down. It’s called Eastern Sun, Winter Moon. Cass is now going to pick it up. She is just finishing our David book: it’s fantastic.

If I wrote this entry in my usual overly verbose, blown out with minutia, laden with detail style, we’d be here till Christmas: so, I won’t!

Thanksgiving was just that: a time for us to pause and say thanks for giving us what we considered a long awaited well deserved break. We forwent the delights of the Thanksgiving party at school on Wednesday night (AKA the swill fest) to spend a bit of quality time with mates (me) and the cats (Cass).

Thursday was a big day for us as we planned to sleep in just a little then decadently watch the whole first day of the first test of the Australian summer and we did just that! I even relented and spent about $40 for a year’s subscription to some streaming just to make sure we’re not interrupted when we really want to watch some cricket. That evening we went to Wendel's and we both had their absolutely delicious steak with pepper sauce: this is just first class stuff, washed down with some quality German red wine.

Cass made a tangy batch of her famous lemon butter for the break so Friday started out the same with hot slabs of toast with lemon butter and beaming cricket from the PC to the TV. At the lunch break we decided to attempt the climb of what we found out later (!) to be North Taiwan’s highest mountain> Scootering up to the base near the Yangminshan Visitor’s centre we set off up the stairs. Little did we realize that 2.5 kilometres straight up we still had not quite arrived at the peak! We were above the cloud line and the top 1/3 of the climb was quite surreal. We encountered lots of squirrels, heaving hikers, strange moss covered foliage and trees and rocks and an other worldly spookiness as we climbed ever higher. On the way back down we discovered a gigantic open space with picnicking hikers and various other groups. I managed to stuff my knee after all those steps and had to peg leg my way down the last little bit. Cass and I still have screaming calf muscles today and we find ourselves exclaiming in pain at the oddest moments! All in all 4 hours of climbing was no mean feat.

Dinner out at Saffron, a very slick Indian restaurant near the cinema and then the very worthwhile and surprising “District 9” from South Africa was our cinematic fare on Saturday.

The Pillbox beckoned on Sunday for a surf trip and Cass enjoyed the sit on the beach in the sun while I got a few uncrowded waves (an increasingly rare event these days in Taiwan). We had a pleasant trip then decided to cross the red bridge to Bali on the left bank of the Danshui river.
Bali was a fantastic spot! We parked then strolled along the boardwalk, taking in the unusual view looking back at Danshui and people watching and sampling the “special and delicious” foods, some of which were OK and some of which were not good at all! We wandered for a few hours and marked a few spots we’ll definitely return to. It was a terrific afternoon and a fitting end to a great re-charging break. Here's a link to the slideshow accompanying this post.

We tested the car out in some dreary, squally weather on Saturday afternoon en route to the tiny historic village of Jiufen in the hinterland of the Keelung mountains. Our spur of the moment planning started out fine, but we decided to ditch it when the rain and wind started to beat down more ferociously as we got nearer the coast.

We made a detour to the off coast near Wanli on the way to Keelung via a tiny winding road which we’d never travelled on before. Ostensibly surf spotting, we were able to find instead a very impressive coastal walkway which extends for many kilometers along the wild bluffs at the foot of the precipitous Keelung mountains which literally fall sheer into the sea. We stayed cocooned in the comfort of the car but were able to see the extent of the path as it followed the road on the ocean side. Colossal boulders and craggy sea caves added to the spectacle as the big swell bashed and crashed, great plumes of spray jettisoned into the air. On a calmer day it would be quite amazing, so we locked that away for further investigation. On the same road further along, we skirted a giant power factory with three impressive chimney stacks right on the coast. The walkway had stopped by then of course!

Swinging back onto the number 3 freeway, we made our way back via Neihu and decided to visit the Miramar shopping complex near the big wheel. After secreting Ziggy in a cavernous car park on the B3 level we made our way up only after carefully noting where we were! We spent some time wandering in the market stalls outside at first before going over to a nearby building that was advertising “international fashion” at warehouse prices. After perusing an endless array of doe soft Italian leather jackets, Cass settled on one which was a kind of aqua colour: I’m sure that description will be quite inadequate. It was indeed being sold at a bargain price…I was sure at first that I’d misheard the Chinese.

We then moseyed around the main building for a while and enjoyed some people watching. What a sight it is in Taipei when the weather just turns ever so slightly wintery. The mercury barely threatening the 20 degree mark, yet the parkas with fur lined collars come out of nowhere. It is always quite hilarious as Taipei’s young women seem very resistant to losing their signature mini skirts, so we often see girls tottering on their gravity defying high heeled knee length boots, micro mini skirts with bare legs and then the aforementioned Antarctic inspired jackets up top: weird, but always entertaining!

We stayed and ate an early dinner at TGI Fridays, which is predictable fare, but comfortingly familiar and easy to order. The ambiance in the restaurant is always fun too, with lots of rock and movie memorabilia displayed on the walls. After successfully finding and extracting the car form the depths of the basement, we made our way home in the early evening. I’ll stop raving about the car soon, but it really is quite satisfying to be driving such a comfortable vehicle at long last: it certainly adds to the driving experience here. The big city traffic can be pretty enervating especially with the strange driving proclivities of the locals, but a decent easy-to-drive car makes it much more bearable.

Today we had Wol around for a good chunk of the day as we watched a live stream of UFC 106. We had a great time talking about all the fights and even Cass came to join us to see the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy”, Tito Ortiz get his comeuppance in his comeback bout!

As threatened, I’m including yet more photos from last weeks temple visit and some from yesterday, Cass at under the Christmas tree at Tom Dragon, in front of the rows of leather jackets in Neihu, some kiddies trying to capture ducks at the outside markets and me in front of the old album covers at Fridays.

An intriguing herd of goats had loitered on a hillside on the way to the Grand palace for many years and we’d often marveled at their brilliant white coats and what sort of maintenance they must receive to maintain such pristine cleanliness. Every other time we’d spied them, we’d noted them with interest as well as the ornate temple gates beyond with a staircase leading up the hillside and disappearing. Today, however, we stopped and stayed and explored and discovered the wonders of Shilin’s very own Juiji temple and garden park.

We got our act together marvelously early this morning and managed to get ourselves out to a new brunching restaurant, appropriately called “Hsiang, The Brunch”, for a decadently delicious breakfast. The restaurant is nestled behind the big cinema complex, Miramar, which we frequent, so we had noticed it before. During the week, Wol mentioned to me how good it was so we decided to check it out. After eating our fill of a mélange of scrambled eggs, eggs Benedict, pancakes, muffins and even salads with apple juice and hot strong coffee, we couldn’t believe we were fed, ready to face the day and all dressed up with nowhere to go so early on a weekend morning!

Off to get some petrol for the scooter, I remembered our herd of goats and we thought it was a perfect opportunity to check it all out. The goats were just the entrée to an extremely pretty and beautiful intricately designed garden and temple. The red lantern lined stairway ascended into jungle like growth above and each step of the way to the top we had another beautifully carved marble or granite sculpture or fresco like panel to admire.

The temple was now in its 5th incarnation and had some remnants that were about 300 years old. The old fortification wall was one such part and an ancient gnarled impossibly gargantuan tree laid its canopy across the top reaches of the stairs, strong wires supporting its weight, in turn bolted into the granite cliff faces: no wonder it has survived all these typhoons we get! We eventually got to the top of the stairs to be greeted with another surprising sight: the landscape opened up into a huge flat area featuring a temple at one end, a parapet view of Tienmu at the other and the most magnificently shaped tree, plumb in the middle.

Onwards and upwards, past even more treasures in stone, a series of well built timber walkways skimmed the undergrowth and allowed the sensation of walking above the lush green growth rather than through it. We spent ages wandering down one walkway then the next, each one ending in a little item of interest, such as a tiny lookout, a bas relief of the area in granite, a shady pavilion with seats to stop and take a breath, or a quiet corner to study a signposted plant.

When we got home, we were amazed to find that is was still morning (by a few minutes) and we’d had such an adventurous day already. It’s really been a great day because of that; we told ourselves we should do it more often. The trouble is, this semester seems to be really beating us up a bit: we seem to be so exhausted when the weekends roll around. Cass continues to set herself a frenetic pace at work as well as (in my opinion!) an excessive marking/grading regime which sees her working most nights as well. I have no such excuse, but do manage to fill up my afternoons and evenings by exercising at the gym or dragging myself off to my Chinese lessons. Suffice to say, we’re very much looking forward to the Thanksgiving break in a week and a half and the Christmas holiday not so far away. Maybe we’re just getting too old….(!)

Cass has begun to read Tim Winton’s Breath and I’m reading my writing book concurrently with a book by my new hero, an 80 year old Hungarian woman acknowledged as the world’s greatest polyglot: she speaks 16 languages! Her name is Kato Lomb and the book is “Polyglot: How I Learn Languages”. Photos are all from today, either at breakfast or at the temple park. I’ll inflict a few more on you next week!

Apparently, our new car must be named, so I’ve reluctantly agreed to the moniker “Ziggy” which alludes to its “ZG” number plates. In many ways, it is now worthy of a naming ceremony after making its first trip over the mountain and round the coast without missing a beat. We were cocooned in the luxurious feeling beast all the way, climate control keeping the humidity at bay and all the other bells and whistles passing their test runs.

We were most impressed with the leather upholstery, superior sound system, electric sunroof and other gadgets as well as the large interior space. My Mum and also my Aunt and Uncle will not be surprised at this news as they have both owned the same vintage Honda Accord at various times (and still have it I believe). It was also the last type of car that Dad drove, and I thought of him a few times as I drove over the mountain for the first time, especially when I “opened her up” to pass a sluggish car in front: he was certainly known for some high speed escapades while driving around home base in Newcastle!

The day was glorious, but the far side of Yangminshan was draped in a sea mist that clung to the ground and didn’t stir. There was no wind and the conditions outside were very uncomfortable. The two boards I had stashed in the back didn’t get any use as we decided not to surf and also not to swim. Instead, we thought we’d give the car a real test ands take it around in search of the huge dog rumoured to be guarding the hinterland of the 18 Lords temple on the north coast. We found the 18 Lords temple, but not the dog…perhaps another time.

While there however, we decided to explore further up the hill, up and up to where the giant wind generated turbines stood. They dwarfed the lone turbine on Kooragang island in Newcastle and we actually had a touch of vertigo staring up at the one at the top of the peak. In typical Taiwanese fashion, these turbines (all 6 of them) have been transformed into a minor tourist attraction, with a boardwalk leading to the base of one and plenty of vantage points designed for photo taking. We missed a tour bus by seconds, so enjoyed a look pretty much to ourselves.

We stopped on the scenic coastal highway and photographed the car while admiring the skills of a lone scuba diver with a net…he seemed to be engaged in a hybrid of ancient aboriginal fish catching practices and modern diving, using a small net to cast towards fish and trying to scoop them up: we didn’t stick around long enough to see if he procured his dinner!

We’d also gone out without any money! We scraped the bottom of the surf bag and found just enough to get a tiny pack of pork dumplings (for me) and some yoghurt (for Cass) and washed our feast down with some water from the free water we get when we fill up the car with petrol.

Suitably recharged, we then investigated down the entrance road from Baishawan to the Cape Fugei lighthouse, where we turned left to re-discover a tiny concrete harbour sheltering a few bobbing fishing boats and some languid fishermen onshore. What was most interesting was a coastal boardwalk heading south-west towards a possible “new” point break. Ever since our horrendous experience of an inexperienced crowd at Greenball a few weeks back, the urgency has grown to find an even more secluded spot, away from the prying eyes of surfers trawling the highway in search of waves. Cass and I investigated further by tracking the road in from the other end, near the ill fated former “Jetson” house of the Sanjih shoreline. After following some signs to the coastal walkway and negotiating a bike path, where we risked precipitous drops into rice paddies on either side, we eventually abandoned the car to progress on foot. After a few hundred metres of very pleasant walking past tiny temples and shaded lanes, we emerged at the coast, devoid of any dwellings and within sight of the other side of the point…this place will definitely be checked again when the swell rises.

We were completely exhausted yesterday for some reason and had a huge sleep-in and couldn’t rouse ourselves to do anything other than vegetate in front of the one day cricket, beaming via internet from India. The Aussies won in the time I would normally be writing the blog, hence the late entry: apologies to those who have a Sunday night routine to read…Ildi?
Photos: car on the coast road, diver catching fish, up at the wind turbines and at the secluded possible future surf break on the boardwalk.

The “auburgino” legend is drawing to a rapid close as her replacement has been selected and a deposit has been paid. We don’t like changing cars as we both become quite fond of them, possibly because we hang on to them for so long!

This weekend has been spent trawling the car yards of Chengde road after I had an eventful experience south of Wugu at the “big daddy” strip of second hand car dealerships on Thursday afternoon/evening. Cassy and I had come to the sad realization that the “aubergino” was definitely on its last legs if not quite giving a death rattle, we could feel it coming> rather than be stranded on a mountain road or in the east coast tunnel when our vehicle abruptly failed to proceed, we decided to look for a replacement. We had the idea that we would do some research, take our time and select a car at our leisure. As is the nature of these things, it didn’t quite go to plan and our timetable sped up quite rapidly when we realized we could get what we wanted sooner than we thought.

I’d found a very popular website used by the second car buyer in Taiwan, and even though all in Chinese, it wasn’t hard to work out the various tabs at the top and narrow down our search according to area, engine size, make and model and most importantly, price. We’d decided to spend up a bit this time, partly as it’s a perfect time with the Aussie dollar going gangbusters: our money is better spent here at the moment. We thought about ten thousand Aussie should secure something reasonably new of a reasonable quality, and we were right. There were lots of choices and we looked at hundreds! The website was great as it gave us an island wide idea of price; so that when we went looking we were fairly knowledgeable.

Taiwan’s fickle weather attacked us on Saturday! We were sweltering in a beating sun and the search on the hot, dry, dirty Chengde road was not a pleasant experience. We did meet some nice salesmen and women, we also met a few snarly uncooperative ones, but we didn’t mind: we just didn’t linger at their yard. My Chinese was tested out on numbers and prices and technical car stuff, but using a combination of Chinese, English and “Chinglish”, we managed to get our message across. We left after a considerable number of hours, determined to get back and test the board out in a few the next day.

The board test is a little weird, but important to us. We didn’t really want a van or people mover etc and we also didn’t want to strap boards to roof racks if we could avoid it. We wanted a saloon with fold down rear seats able to take a 6’5” surfboard in the back….not so easy to find! If we had to, we would have looked at different models, but as it turned out, we found just what we wanted, albeit a lot older and cheaper than we first looked for. We settled on A Honda Accord, vintage 1999 which is very impressive and for under half what we were initially looking at. Sure, it’s a little older, but it is in great condition and is beautifully finished. Just some of the specs: 2 airbags, ABS brakes, air con, electric everything, including sunroof, full leather upholstery all round with wood grain trim, CD stacker, alarm etc. It has a 2 litre VTEC engine and the body was clean and blemish free. We’re pretty happy!

I did the deal today and paid a deposit and spent a few hours running back and forth to banks etc, taking test drives, basically just checking out all the little things and whether they all worked. I now need to go back tomorrow afternoon to trade in the big old corona for a few bucks, take it off the buy price, then get all the rego transferred over at the Motor Transport department. I’m expecting a few hours for that and then: “new” car! We cleaned out the old car this afternoon, and the portable shower, tub of surf equipment, maps and various other stuff is all ready to go in the new car.

On a different note, I’ve been peer pressured into entering “Movember” for charity this month. Apart from the sparse growth I’ll be able to achieve, the fiery red numbers amongst all the grey with a just a few aberrant black hairs will be a real horror show. I don’t know if I’m going to last real long! Cass is exhausted after her parent conferences on Thursday and Friday and our car hunt all weekend…we both need another weekend to relax a little. Photos: a collapsed lion dancer at the temple just around the corner, me and Virg with a stack of cash, the last shot of the beat up old Auburgino and the new Accord.

The sky had a steely haze today and the wind was whipping through the treetops suggesting the day was cool, but it’s that really strange in-between weather that got us leaving the house well clad only to arrive back this afternoon in a bit of a sweat. We’ve been up to the Royal Host at Beitou to have a late lunch of their signature New Zealand steak (and paint thinner red wine!) and arrived back to catch a little cricket from the first game of the Australia/India one day series.

The weekend started in unusual fashion. We got the car out on Friday afternoon from the basement car park in anticipation of a run to the north coast on Saturday. The annual food fair was on Saturday at school and I’ve been caught before: in fact a couple of years ago, I remember wrestling out through the garage with my board in tow to catch a lift with someone and in quite a bizarre scene, walked through hay bales and the four ponies blocking the garage entrance giving little kiddies rides round the outside car park! Anyway, we had no such problems this weekend.

Cass and I drove out from our park nearby on the river road and got to Jinshan to be greeted by very messy, slow moving swell, very wind affected and totally uninviting. Continuing round the always picturesque northern highway round to Shimen and then beyond, I wasn’t expecting a lot, but Dan’s text, “lots of fellas, nice waves” didn’t quite prepare us for the sight as we crested the Greenball hill. The water was thick with surfers, little black dots bobbing and moving with the swell, and the road swollen with cars double and triple parked, surfers and gawkers alike choking the area in front of the scenic lookout.

Dan was on his way out and I followed closely behind negotiating the steep climb over rocks and tetra pods to make the paddle out spot. It was carnage out there: the swell was big enough to be interesting and the surf was smooth faced and powerful. The trouble was the 58 surfers sharing the one very narrow take off zone! After a narrow miss from an out of control mal rider, and three guys washing straight over the top of me during duckdiving a clean up set, I decided that discretion would be the better part of valour and paddled back in…it was just too dangerous, I reckon.

We drove back through the pretty hinterland at the back of Sanjih town and stopped off at a rather unusual structure perched on one of the highest hills beyond the town. It turned out to be an extremely ornate cemetery, the graves gleaming in blue and white tiles just hanging precariously on the steep hillside. Further on we stopped at another temple where we got some lunch at the local 7/11.

I was due to meet my book club group on Saturday night, but we weren’t starting till local lounge bar, “The Red Hut” opened at 9pm, so Cass and I watched some TV and had a very delicious dinner that she cooked, before I eventually meandered off in the mid evening drizzle to take the car back, then walk back to the bar. The book club group is an eclectic mix of men, all of whom work at school, but who represent many subject areas and are drawn from all 3 divisions. I’ve slowly warmed to the concept of this group, even though I had resisted its charms for many years, despite multiple invitations to join as I thought they were a bit elitist. They probably are to a certain extent, but it doesn’t really matter. We have good fun, all the guys are interesting characters and we all have a shared passion. Some of the best reading I’ve had in years is from recommendations from the other men here, so I’m enjoying the whole experience. Naturally, many beers are also drunk by all, which adds to the spice of the conversations as we drift along into the early hours of Sunday morning!

Late brekky this morning then I was delighted to be able to live stream the latest UFC, UFC 104 at 10 am. It was 7pm on Saturday night at the Staples center in Los Angeles: what an age we’re in! It was kind of freaky to watch this live event in our lounge room in Taipei, remotely beaming for the computer to the TV as it took place halfway across the world. In fact, right now, I am typing this on Cassy’s laptop sitting on the lounge as we both watch the cricket from India…I’ll just have to fiddle with the photos a bit later on.

I’m anticipating the photos I will use will be: me negotiating the entry to Greenball, getting out again, Cass at the hilltop cemetery and its Buddha, Cass at another Buddha near Beitou, a garish temple in the hills behind Danshui and one of the manholes which are ubiquitous in the Tienmu streets and lanes…they’re a real work of art. I’m reading “The Writing Book” by Kate Grenville, and Cass is reading, “People of the Book” by Geraldine Brooks for her upcoming book club meeting.

Australia is far more sophisticated and experienced than Taiwan in a certain rather bizarre area (and many others I suspect). The naturally occurring seasons falling in opposite quarters around the world means that Australia has experienced a full winter flu season of H1N1, of which Taiwan is only now on the verge. The protocols back home were stringent, the predictions dire and everyone was warned to brace for the very worst. Eventually, as hospitals strained at the seams and doctors stopped testing, instead advising normal flu precautions, people relaxed a little, remained vigilant and got on with life.

I have just been informed that one of the three classes with which I work will be quarantined this week. Taiwan has a protocol in place that TAS follows, which states that a class and their teacher must remain home from school for 5 days if two or more students test positive for H1N1 at any one time. Dave, the class teacher, is a new young teacher from Canada in his first year at TAS, so I can imagine how he must be treating this news. I will only have 2/3 of my support class and not be in his class at all, so I’ll need to deliver work to these kids via email and the online classroom. The school is geared up for these eventualities of course, but kids at this age and stage still have trouble with keyboarding skills, let alone the intricacies of receiving, completing then re-sending work electronically over a period of time. Oh well, we’ll wait and see how it goes…

On Friday, I was in the second day of parent conferences and Cassy had a PD day which was far from a picnic. She set herself a quota of essays to grade and somehow marked 19 of them before she went to meet her team for lunch at 1 o’clock! They went to Chili’s, but even though one of her favourites, I don’t know if she enjoyed it so much…her brain was set to explode! I got my car inspected on Friday afternoon and by some absolute miracle it passed all the tests including a rather stringent emissions test: the fact that I drove it around for 40 minutes before going in and literally blowing off a lot of smoke must have done the trick…

Cassy and I have had about the laziest day imaginable today and the rest of the weekend wasn’t much different! We’ve spent all day today lying around reading books, she with the unputdownable, The Slap, and me with the very strange, The Lost Symbol. I have spent vast amounts of hot air ranting about the poor quality of Dan Brown books, but thought I’d better actually read one in its entirety before making further aspersions. Verdict: although grammatically perfect and sophisticated vocabulary is used at times, it was frustrating to deal with overuse of exclamation points, italics to indicate every character’s most banal and obvious thoughts as well as the ludicrously short chapters. Each sentence and chapter follows a formula, and the mini climax at the end of each chapter just gets too weird... deeply disturbing, yet strangely compelling! Anyway, at least I tried: in fact they really remind me of the exciting Alastair MacLean books I read as a teenager, except not as good.

We had a major breakdown of electronic equipment this week so we’ve had to upgrade all sorts of things. We nearly got a new phone until we realized that we probably just needed to replace the fancy rechargeable batteries: solved. The monitor of the computer, an old boxy model had to make way for a slick new flat screen model when the old one started to dance and wave all over the place. The only creatures sad about this will be Virg’n Mary as they won’t be able to sit on the warm top anymore! We walked over to Carrefour yesterday afternoon and got a new wireless keyboard and mouse to replace the very old dirty faded and annoying corded set we’ve had for the last 8 years. So now, we actually have a set of accessories that match the super power of our computer and internet connection…much better. Continuing the upgrade of electronics, I recently bought an e-reader, which is proving to be a great success. I can store hundreds if not thousands of books on here if i choose, and will probably use it a lot when travelling. I’m reading Dan on it right now. It has a snazzy leather cover, and unlike the Kindle or Sony Reader, my Hanlin can read nearly every type of text file imaginable, like word, lit., pdf., epub. and about another 10 varieties. It’s another techy toy that I love!

Yesterday we went out to tea at Thai Town then wandered over to FNAC to get the phone batteries , came home and watched some TV went to bed late and had our super lazy day today: in fact, writing this has been the most exhausting thing I’ve done all day!
Photos: Cass at Thai Town, red lanterns on the street, the girls relaxing on the back of the lounge, the new screen, keyboard and mouse and me with the ereader.

If you're wondering where that beautiful Taiwan video has gone, well I put it under "videos" on the left, or you can view it again here.