The great Gurecki winged off to Nagasaki to consult with architects for his planned new house on Friday, leaving Wal and me to mind the shop down at the Polish Nation Headquarters. This slow build-up to another life in Japan is a little worrying from Gurecki: while he assures us he's staying for a couple more years, all this activity speaks a different tale. Anyway, Wal and I did our best to cut through the diplomatic red tape and solve some world issues even without our leader's influence.
Party time on Saturday night down at Mr. Sausage! My colleague and good friend, Dave, with whom I've team taught for the last couple of years each day, was hosting a party for his wife's birthday. We don't know Toby well, but she's an energetic and charismatic girl, a great match for Dave, and we were pleased to be invited to her 30th to have a further opportunity to catch up with her and her friends. Toby works at the Canadian Trade Office, and as a young diplomat, has had the opportunity to study languages full-time as part of her job. She made best use of this before they moved here to Taiwan, and her Mandarin skills today are silky smooth and enviable. We'll miss them next year: this life inevitably sees people moving on, and they will take up another posting next year, where as yet unknown.
The party was absolutely fantastic! A few people from my team went down and we chatted with them at the start. Wal publicly debuted his girlfriend, Annie, with whom he seems quite taken and dedicated, and with good reason as she seems charming, smart and beautiful. There were a stack of people from the Canadian Trade Office and another coterie of Canadians, mainly linked with Dave's ice hockey team here in Taiwan. "Mr. Sausage" himself was an ex-pat Aussie married to a Taiwanese woman (an infectiously delightful maitre de) and has had the restaurant going for about a year. The food was sensational: we'll be ordering some through his delivery service and we're already regretting not doing what others did on the night: take some home as takeaway. Suffice to say that Cass and I both had a really entertaining night.
Shaun was keen for me to join him down at the Patio 84 (formerly the Green Bar), to watch the Aussies game in the rugby world cup followed by the All Blacks. We were glad we went together as when we walked near, we could hear the noise emanating from the bar indicating a very large and boisterous crowd were already in attendance. To our horror, the Springbok contingent of Taipei had decided to descend en masse and were cooking BBQs on the footpath, sloshing giant steins of beer around with gay abandon and singing at loud volume and off key with great gusto! What had we done? Settling in a quiet corner inside, the Aussies initial shock try was a comical moment. The noise abruptly stopped and as we raised our arms in the air and cheered, dozens of flinty hard South African eyes drilled straight through us....they weren't too happy. Cut a long story short, we survived and actually had a few long friendly chats with the vanquished afterwards before watching the All Blacks game.
Cass and I decadently went down late morning Monday to Jake's and had a whopping big breakfast with all the trimmings! It's always a treat to eat breakfast/brunch out and this was especially sweet falling as it did on a usual work day. Full as the last bus, we scootered home then decided to further enjoy the day off and go to the movies. Too late to book online, we went over to the Miramar, only to find a very orderly but incredibly long ticket line snaking its way back, back and further back into the far reaches of the complex! There are terrific benefits of living in a city this big and this populous, but this is definitely not one of them! We took one look, decided that we weren't prepared to wait in this corralled humanity for the requisite amount of time and left for home again. We decided to have our own cinematic experience and watched the downloaded, dark, disturbing Australian movie, Snowtown....Prior to our movie, we witnessed the real show of military muscle in the skies: and saw the Taiwanese air force on their way downtown for various flyovers. I took a few videos from our balcony, including the helicopters flyover, the transport planes then the jet fighters. It was an unforgettable experience and just a little frightening: I'm not sure how long the Taiwanese might hold off a full onslaught from China.
Tuesday and another day off? Off to the east coast we went to surf and swim. Sluicing through the 13km tunnel at Pinglin and jettisoning out the other side, the Wushi harbour, Waiao area was, as usual, a mix of rural dagginess and new money east coast surfie culture. The two are vying for domination now: when Ross and I first made the trip years ago across the mountains, it was like entering the Taiwanese equivalent of the "Deliverance" foothills! We had a good time surfing at the "Taj Mahal", it was small but fun and without a zephyr. Cass settled in with her straw pointy hat perched on top, her low-light being to save a stray kitten from a dog attack, but the highlight a chance to bliss out a little at one of her favourite east coast spots! The Robinson family were there as well, so I surfed with a few friends out the back.
I'm considering tonight's post the equivalent of a Sunday night posting as it seems like one to me! Photos are of a restaurant up on our corner, shots from the party, breakfast at Jake's and the day at the beach, including religious stuff at the water's edge and a wonderful working pump to rinse off! Also, a Taiwanese 7/11 lunch, some jets, and Virg doing what she does best: nothing!