I’ve been consumed by my own inertia today, so this will be brief, because it’s relatively late and I’ve got very little to report! We’ve been watching the one day cricket streaming live from the SCG today, where Australia has just beaten Pakistan comprehensively. We’re now watching the Australian Open night session on TV. You know the old saying, “You can take the boy out of Australia but you can’t take Australia out of the boy…”? Well, living proof right here!

Cass and I have both enjoyed the day, partly because it is dreary old day outside and very uninviting. The surf has been sloppy and unappealing too, so what to do? We did make a sortie out last evening to go to one of our favorite restaurants, Aubergine, and it didn’t disappoint. After that, we went across to the cinema complex and saw the very quirky, entertaining movie called “The Men Who Stare At Goats”. It had the proverbial galaxy of stars, all doing something more bizarre than their peers,. George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges were just some of them. The plot is far too complicated and strange to describe, but Cass summed it up quite neatly when she said this morning that the main theme appeared to have been, “Please be nice to one another”, yet they went to very convoluted lengths to say it! Well worth a look though, quite thought provoking.

I’ve been drafting another article all about reading, electronic readers, libraries and sustained silent reading that Gurecki and I will publish somewhere hopefully. We take it in turns to get the first draft out and then pick away if necessary (often we think it is not). It’s good to collaborate on these things though: we think it adds a touch more gravitas to our drippings! With a PD day coming up for both of us tomorrow, hopefully I’ll get some time to “take some notes” with the laptop while some “expert” is droning on…might get a bit more done.

Well, that’s about it for us this week….a very standard week at work and neither of us got motivated to plan anything special for the weekend…maybe next week! Photos are from our day a while back on the far side of the Danshui river at Bali. I'm reading The Colossus of Maroussi written by Henry Miller in 1939...it is absolutely brilliant.

Taipei has slowly dipped her toes into an icy bath and her feet are now submerged as well. The feeling is uncomfortable but bearable, but you get the sense that the cold and damp are slowly soaking into your body, chilling you from the inside out. It’s not that cold thermometer wise, but the bone chill factor is way up there. The other possibility is that after years watching the Taiwanese dress up like Douglas Mawson whenever the temperature drops below 15, we’ve turned into nauseatingly weak cold weather wimps!

I have been taken over by iPod touch fever this weekend as I finally discovered latterly that I could indeed upgrade my iPod’s software to partially replicate many of the iphone’s functions. That’s the trouble with being a sad tech geek who eagerly anticipates the “next big thing”. Even though I bought what could well have been the first iPod touch sold in Taiwan (after having been on a waiting list for a month: I know, if it wasn’t so sad it would be tragic), I also fell victim to the geek’s curse of early uptake. Of course to boost the initial flush of sales, the 2nd and 3rd generations can do all sorts of things the early models can’t. Anyway, the super new software update has allowed me to put all sorts of applications on the iPod as well as finally working its GPS capability which until now had lain frustratingly dormant somewhere in all those tiny little diodes and chips (I obviously have NO idea what I’m talking about!). Suffice to say, that apart from my incredibly romantic side coming to the fore on Saturday evening, Cassy has been an iPod widow apart from the few times when I’ve exhorted her to check out the “wonders” of my various “apps”…she’s a very patient woman.

We celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary in style on Saturday evening. My aforementioned romantic streak extended to booking the famous Taipei 101’s Diamond Tony’s “Panorama” restaurant for our dinner date. Yes, this is the same restaurant I named in a drinking session a few years back, the same one we went for our 20th anniversary and I believe, even though 101 has just slipped into 2nd place as the world’s tallest building, it is still the world’s highest restaurant from the surrounding ground. I had booked a booth this time on the south side, which had a great view of the city action to the south and west, so even though not quite as special as last time, it was still very spectacular.

We got all dressed up and cabbed down, were let in by a security guard to a huge private lobby on Hsin Yi Lu, before clicking across the vast marble interior to an escalator. The check in girls escorted us to the first elevator which took us to the 60th floor in no time at all, before we changed elevators to get to the 85th floor. It was all very swish, as we were greeted by name at every juncture then shown to our booth. This restaurant is all class, but somehow without the slightest hint of pretension: a good mix. The menu had changed a little (for the better) and all our courses (6 of them!) were superb. We had a 2005 Victorian Greenpoint Shiraz as an accompanying wine and the whole evening was fantastic. The décor in the place is just out of this world: the full size Venetian gondola as a bar centerpiece is exquisite and the amount of marble in this place rivals the most palatial of Roman venues.

Today, we’ve spent indoors pretty much watching the cricket streamed live from Hobart. The subscription I took out a few weeks back is really paying off: unbidden, the people who run the site have just increased the size of the feed so the picture is even clearer when we beam it onto the TV. Wow, I just love technology! Before I go too geek nerdy again, I’ll finish the tech talk with just one more comment. Using Facebook via the iPod to update my status produced some really unexpected results. Heaps of people commented on the update concerning our anniversary, friends and ex-students alike…it was really quite touching. When I need a little boost next time I’ll have to remember that!

Photos are all from before, during or after our Panorama experience: portrait before we left, Taipei by night 85 floors up, vertigo inducing urinal experience, the gondola, Cass with some of her favourite wines and my Facebook page (double click on any image for a slightly larger version).

Stop Press: We just received an articulate and entertaining email from our nephew Michael and he tells us he just received a 3rd gen iPod touch for his recent (12th) birthday. I despair of the hard work I'll have to do to keep up with these digital natives!

We’d threatened to walk along the meandering seashore of Keelung County before, but spied an opportunity and made the best of it. The weather was abysmal last time we visited so we did a scout by car and planned to get back one day. The small car park at the start of the walk held another small treasure across the road, a trail that wound its way through some impossibly steep looking slopes before descending again just a few hundred metres from the starting point: next time! The walk was as pleasant as we’d hoped and we admired the craggy outcrops of rock and the deep colours of the China Sea as a foreground to an unusually diverse set of sea craft bobbing up and down in the light swell. Just about at the end of our walk we spied the unexpected “Mykonos” in its 3 stories of “Greek” glory. This is a must return visit in summer when the umbrella deck up top will have endless views of the coast. As it was we took advantage of a coffee and cake and even though we might have a little trouble with the all Chinese menu, we’ll be sure to give it a crack next time.

Sunday’s sensational weather was another lure to get into the great outdoors, so after a leisurely morning of sleeping in and slowly breakfasting, we hit the road. Our destination was Ilan County, about an hour’s drive away, the hitherto unremarkable flat plain of endless housing, shops and typical Taiwanese city living. The jewel in Ilan’s crown is the town of Jiaosi and more particularly the waterfalls and mountain trails of Wufongci (Five Flags).

We were quite dazzled by Jiaosi’s charms on the way in and the way out of the waterfalls. It is a really bustling metropolis, full of hot spring hotels of every persuasion, budget right through to 5 stars. It had a really good vibe and we would never have guessed. Our normal practice is to whizz through with scarcely a glance on the elevated expressway heading south to Nan Ao, dismissing Ilan as a horrible slum…how wrong we were!

We wended our way through the backstreets of the town, ever higher and heading west into the mountains from which our expressway tunnel had just burst. The countryside was fresh and gorgeous, the sights and smells particularly different. After parking down the hill a few hundred metres we made our way through the obligatory alley of specialized stalls, little eats and local curiosities. One couple were selling what appeared to be the engorged roots of some mysterious plant, painted up to (supposedly) resemble certain animals…weird! Another man had a huge photo of his father as a backdrop to his local honey stall: but Dad was covered head to toe in bees. Places like these do tend to set the scene for something special to come!

The first two drops of the waterfall were very spectacular and although not at full flow, the crescendo of water dropping from a great height, the spray-making rainbows shimmering near the base and the clean fresh feel of the place were quite dazzling. They’ve done a surprisingly tasteful job of the viewing platforms and pagodas as well. Garish colours were non evident and the simple red sloping roof of the little pagoda was a great entrée to the waterfall itself. The highest drop was off limits to visitors unfortunately, due we think to building works or repairs to the stairs and paths. Not to worry an excuse to re-visit and also the reason we discovered another trail and a picturesque hidden church higher up the mountain.

We kept walking higher and higher after being disappointed with the closure of the high trail and discovered a delightful Christian church, completely circular and set amongst manicured grounds with panoramic views all the way down the valley and out to sea. It was most impressive and Cass spied a road winding away ever higher at the rear of the church. It quickly petered out into a rough track and was on an incline all the way. We walked along here for about 45 minutes, all the while wondering where it was going and meeting parties of folk coming back down the trail, all kitted up with packs and supplies and most of them a fair bit older than us! We thought if those old tools could do it, so could we! (That reference was for you Xris). As it turns out we didn’t find anything more than a path that just continued and continued, but we enjoyed the bush walk, the amazing views and the serenity immensely.

The car then navigated its way back to Tienmu, contending with a mild traffic jam in the 13km tunnel and delivering us safely home in the early evening. I think we’re both ready to face another week of work after all that outdoor activity. I’m still reading “The Portrait of a Lady” just a little at a time at night so it will be ages before I finish it and Cass has been captured by the large feline beast in “The White Tiger”.

Sumba is a spectacular island, an amazing mix of stone age animist culture, villagers fighting against poverty, malaria and lack of water, a high end eco resort and an array of surf breaks unrivalled anywhere else in the world. We were privileged to spend the first part of our Christmas holiday on this barely discovered Indonesian island and it will be a destination to which we will return.

The villagers of Sumba have a fierce pride in their traditional culture and until barely 40 years ago still practiced brutal tribal war and headhunted their enemies. Many of them have now converted to Christianity but retain strong links with the traditional culture, including their incredible thatched roof huts with the vaulted roofs, where ponies and livestock live on the ground floor, the family above on a raised wooden level and the grain sacks above that again. We had the pleasure of visiting a village, seeing the Ikat weaving in process, meeting the kids and seeing village life in action. Watching kids with hands full of chickens, fishermen stringing fish on poles of wood, watching women and children carrying huge earthenware jars of water on their head as they made their way to and from wells was an otherworldly experience. We also attended the local weekly market and saw all manner of things being bought and sold, including great swathes of marijuana and betel nut along with live produce. Cassy bought a live chicken from a little girl, then promptly donated it right back to her when we realised we were supposed to slaughter and eat it: I’ve never seen a happier kid! We visited a medical clinic run by the generous benefactors of the island, the Sumba Foundation, who are doing superb work in treating and trying to eradicate malaria. Donations from foreigners, including a large slab of the fees we pay to stay at the resort, sustain this very worthwhile program.

The surf was just sublime. I have never before witnessed such mechanical perfection. The glistening water, pristine coral reefs, light off shore winds and good sized swell just didn’t relent during our stay. At the end of the week, I was totally exhausted after 3 sessions a day in the water. The only thing that saved me from collapse was the need to eat and the assurance that on rare occasions the tide wasn’t right, even though it still looked fantastic to me! On the first two days, I travelled with the only two other surfers staying at that time to Wanakaka, a 30 minute drive away. Here we pulled up at a traditional fishing village and were quite the hit, then paddled out to a right hand reef break about 200 metres off shore. Wave after wave just rolled in, hit the reef and barreled, making it out to a deep channel where village fishing boats lolled…I could feel every bit of tension just melting away in that first morning. The famous Nihiwatu left hand break, sometimes also referred to as “Occy’s Left” of even “God’s Left” certainly lived up to expectations. The wave while a fast sectioned left hander was also amazingly forgiving, almost looking after you if you got your feet in the wrong spot, or misjudged a turn or two. I got a lot more confident with my surfing as each day went by: if only I could wrap this wave up and take it with me wherever I go!

The resort was astounding. Cassy and I both gave it 10/10 on all levels. The “bungalow” accommodation was 5 star stunning. The size of our bungalow and the appointments were beyond anything we’ve experienced before, but the hardest thing to get used to was the service. There just seemed to be people around to do anything you wanted at any time. We could eat our meals at any time we chose. We could request private dining by the pool or at a deserted beach. We could order from the menu, or just request anything else within reason if that didn’t take our fancy. We found it very hard to get used to, but by the time we left, we were getting into the swing of things! Every meal was gourmet, lunch and dinner 3 course (plus anything else you wanted) and breakfast buffets were just the start before you ordered your eggs how you liked them, or perhaps your mango pancakes? They had a little boutique shop, where Cass bought a beautiful silver pendant in the logo design, made by French jewelry designer Lorenz, who was staying at the resort with his family and was a great guy to surf with. There was a book exchange, two pools, 2 spa huts (where we both had a full body massage…wow!) and yoga hall. When I got out of the surf, a man came and took my board from me, racked it for the next session, then got me a drink from the bar after handing me a towel: it was a little unsettling at first, but we realised soon enough that it was a way to employ lots of villagers and give even more back to the island community.

The week was very, very special. We have so many memories, so many highlights; I can barely scratch the surface here. Suffice to say that after returning, we’ve been quite content to just potter around home with a few little outings through the week, really chilling out and letting our Sumba experience sink in and take hold. We don’t think anything they throw at us at work this week could possible dent our spirits: Or could it?!

Photos are courtesy of our slide show (without surf). For surf shots, check out pointyhat and also this movie I made, which has some video and stills Cass took as well as some experimental video I took with a little camera strapped to my head…interesting! It was a lot more interesting before YouTube stripped off my audio track…something about copyright: who knew you couldn’t use the latest Wolfmother tracks on your own video!