The Chinese New Year usually brings some frowsy weather with it to Taiwan, but as we’ve had a surfeit of cold and rain this month along with a dearth of sunshine, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the week was cool and crisp, some sunnier days, and hardly a drop of rain fell. It was a relief after what we had decided was one of the worst starts to a year we had experienced here, our opinion backed up by the latest official news that January was the coldest in 40 years.
Cassy’s cooking frenzy last weekend was a bonus for us all week, as we slept in nearly every day and had a long lazy breakfast with big slabs of piping hot English toast slathered with a generous helping of both butter and Cassy’s famous lemon butter…..wow! Chunky chicken soup was almost a solid meal and steaming bowls of same accompanied by hot buttered toast was a common lunch or dinner as well.
Our days were a meandering affair of reading, napping, viewing and occasionally some walking to try to assuage some guilt from all that lying around not doing terribly much at all! It was a decadent spoiling week and we both lapped it up. Strangely, even after our Christmas break, we were both quite exhausted when last Friday rolled around. We’ve experienced a similar feeling before at Chinese New Year: our Christmas breaks are full of travel and wonder, and even though exciting, they don’t usually give us a break to wind down after a long first semester. CNY is the panacea for that lingering need for total rest.
We ventured over to the coast earlier in the week, but my vague plan to get some surf was thwarted by a very uncooperative ocean and wind. Nonetheless, I dragged Cass from one spot to another till we had exhausted the gamut of breaks up north, ever chasing that elusive wave. I’ve done the same thing so many times before I should know by now: if one spot is below par, you can bet your life the others will be similar or even worse! The drive over and back was pleasant though and we managed to avoid the traffic jams and chaos so often found on the roads at this time of year as families return to home towns, or married women bring their families back to home turf. The traffic is so bad at times during this period that cars are banned from freeways unless they are carrying at least three passengers!
Most days we went for a walk either “up” or “down” the canals. One of our “down” walks ended up with us marching out some great distances and we found ourselves strolling down the Keelung River heading towards the Grand Palace. The shared bike/pedestrian paths in Taipei are quite superb and a real credit to the local government. I mean, let’s be honest: the city is a seething mass of cars and buses and trains belching out plumes of carbon monoxide to the extent that the city appears to be nestled in a blanket of smog when viewed from up on the mountain. Somehow, the powers have secured enough riverside land and funding to provide a wide ranging network of brilliantly maintained paths that slice along riverbanks, leap over creeks and streams and sidestep built structures. They’re well signposted and show a side of Taipei that is far removed from the hirdy girdy of the freeways and byways, a linear oasis by the river. We even spotted some relatively big boats moored at a little marina near the confluence of the Damshui and Keelung rivers: a little bizarre!
I managed to have various beer drinking sessions with a variety of different friend groups during the week as well which was good fun, but another factor that probably slowed us down some mornings! We had some visitors to watch the cricket on Wednesday and Gurecki came round on Friday to enjoy the sunshine on our verandah. Yesterday, Wal and I managed to convert a session watching the UFC at the Green Bar into one last hurrah for the holidays, milking every last minute from the break!
We’ve both read a lot as well, although even as Cass enjoys the second in the Millennium series, I think I’ve been turned off using similes for life by the otherwise entertaining writing of Harlan Coben. There are at least two on every page! Here’s a quote to show the abrasive regularity of said figure of speech: “He looked, however, like a beatnik trapped in a bad acid trip. Retro, Norm had explained earlier, was cresting, and he was catching the wave by wearing a psychedelic poncho, fatigue pants, love beads, and an earring with a dangling peace sign. Groovy, man. His black-to-gray beard was unruly enough to nest beetle larvae, his hair newly curled like something out of a bad production of Godspell.” They are good similes, there are just way too many of them!
Anyway, Jo (Cassy’s agent!) has posted some photos on her facebook page that she took during the ad production. Cass reckons people will be sick to death of this theme, but I’m not, so too bad! Other photos are of a walk we did doing some river tracing in Yangminshan (I forgot to write about that!), and the bike path marina.