Spring Break is always a very relaxed, reflective break for us, before the last two months of helter skelter as the year builds right up to a crescendo, before letting us down gently in the last ½ week before hopping on the plane home. Just a couple of months to go.The weather was forecast to be bad and it was quite miserable for the majority of the week. Nonetheless, we found plenty of things to amuse us, reading books, taking trips to all sorts of spots in and around and way outside the city, either by bus, car or train.
Cass celebrated her birthday today and we had a few little celebrations around that and she was really pleased to hear from lots of folk, some of whom we don’t hear from often, but it’s great to get some contact and hear what they’ve been up to. Over the past few days, we’ve had emails from Kathy P, Wayne and Josie, Harve and Tania, Lois, my Mum, Jennifer, Susan and Helen! I spoke to Caes on the phone and Cassy’s parents rang up to wish Cass all the best this evening. Last night, we travelled down to Hsin Yi to have dinner at one of Cassy’s favourite restaurants, Romano’s Macaroni Grill. We always leave there feeling most satisfied and find that we can’t tear ourselves away from the Veal Parmigiana, which is one of their specialties, and incredibly delicious (Cass said you’d be jealous, KP!). We had some salads and soup for a start, accompanied our main meal with a bottle of Italian red whilst gazing at the big framed Italian photos on the wall and imagining ourselves back on our Italian holiday of just 3 months ago. Decadently, we caught a cab back to Tienmu: we don’t often, but it was quite a treat not to brave the madding Saturday night crowd on the subway.
We went down to Joe's midweek and asked him to set the sapphire we’d bought for Lily and Cass went back to pick it up yesterday. It looks great and I’m sure she’ll be very pleased with it.
I’ve had two big surfs this week, the second of which is one of the best surfs I’ve ever had! On Monday we drove out to the north east tip to Greenball and the swell was pumping, the waves solid and the faces clean. I was rightly stoked with the conditions and was all buzzed up afterwards. On Wednesday, Cass came with me again, this time through the tunnel to the east coast and Wushi harbour, and Dashi. All the known spots were reasonably big, not huge, but really blown out. On a whim, I suggested we travel further south to the rumoured surf spot of “Nanao”, which Dan and I had spotted on a Chinese surf blog some time back. Ironically, he had been there on his family trip down the coast just a few days before, and texted that it was pretty good.
The trip down was a bit drizzly, but the misty rain couldn’t cover the spectacular views from the cliffs as we went south. After we dropped off the end of the 5 expressway, the road resumes its languid curving up and over a succession of steep cliffs and mountains, sheer drops to the sea and visions of plummeting into the ether in the back of our mind as we drove rather sedately through! After two hours, we arrived in the very nondescript country village of Nanao and realized we were a long way from the coast. Sniffing our way down through farmer’s back roads all the way to the beach, we were greeted by a surfer’s most magical vision: big, clean, perfect left hand waves boiling off a rocky outcrop, and then peeling left along the beach with NO ONE out!! I was literally jumping up and down with excitement and Cass thought I had gone quite crazy as I ripped off my gear, got into the wetsuit and paddled out. It was an amazing experience, a great combination of the right wind, swell, and tide combined with a mid weekday to eliminate any other surfer. It was so isolated; it was almost as if we’d arrived on the shores of some deserted island. Anyway, I could waffle on and on here: you get the idea right? I was and still am absolutely stoked!
During the week, I’ve managed to do the steps a few times as well, which is good for my mental health, and listened to a bit of Chinese on the audio, although I did cancel my two lessons. Wal and Gurecki got back from Japan, and had equally excellent trips, so on Friday, Wal, Shaun and I had a few beers at a new beer garden/restaurant we’d found near Shipai station. Either it is outrageously cheap or they made some kind of mistake with our bill, as we didn’t seem to pay much at all at the end of the night. What goes around will no doubt come around though…
Pictures: obviously a few photos of Nanao surfing heaven (!), Cass in front of a Nanao rice paddy with spectacular cliffs in the background. We’re dressed in black for our night out, Cass at Azie café in the Regent where we had lunch (very tasty, I forgot to mention before) one day when we went down to see Joe, and me outside a sign for the “Clear Mind Mental Clinic”…enough said.
Stop press: Just as I was writing this, Mum rang up and wished Cass a happy birthday and caught us up with her very busy schedule: I don't know how any of these retired folk ever fitted a job into their lives!