Cass and I both had our respective Book Clubs scheduled for Friday night yet neither of us was really in the mood. Cass had hers nearly cancelled when the host needed to pull out, but they hastily re-assembled at the poetically named 'Neverland" just near us in Tienmu East Road. Far from Jiminy Cricket and Tinkerbelle sparkling fairy dust throughout, or perhaps even Michael Jackson and Bubbles enjoying their theme park rides, this version of Neverland is an upmarket restaurant which classy decor and excellent service by a coterie of hovering wait staff. They had a good time and discussed their book, “Unbroken", about which I raved not long back. It really must be a boy thing however: every man I know who read the book absolutely loved it yet the women, to generalise, seem to appreciate the story to a much lesser extent. Oh well, it would be weird if we loved everything equally!
I met up with Morgs (a friend of Wal) and a small entourage early at Ulis before they retreated to some "organised fun" put on by the school down at Alleycats Pizza. I'm only occasionally a big fan of these days, as they don't go long enough and end up being very enervating, especially on a Friday afternoon. Morgs had travelled up from his school in Bangkok for a job interview, everything went really well, so we hope he hears some good news in the next couple of months. Afterwards, I met up with them again at Michael G.'s house where we put his brand new super speakers up to ear bleed level and listened to some classic rock.
This was the entree to our main course on Friday though, as we then taxied down to Roxy Rocker, the nightclub down In Heping Dong Lu. We've been here a few times before, and you might remember the description. There are literally tens of thousands of old vinyl LPs lining the walls in floor to ceiling shelves and a dedicated DJ with a couple of turntables rolling the discs. It's dark, loud, atmospheric and full of good music and huge jugs of beer.....great fun!
On Saturday night we made the great trek downtown for a special dinner at Tajin Moroccan Cuisine a long lost cuisine for us. “Le Casanova”, the now defunct Moroccan restaurant in Tienmu was a much loved favourite and sadly missed. This new place was great, but perhaps not in the same class as the other, unfortunately. The food was Tanjine cooked and delicious, but didn't seem to have quite the richness of flavours we'd been used to. Who knows, maybe this was the authentic version?!
Sometimes it can be exotic and exciting, but at others, the metro journey down and across town can be a real shocker. Leaving in early evening on a Saturday night is never a good idea and we endured packed trains, no seats and a massive press of humanity both in and out of the train. It was a relief to be disgorged down at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall station, but we still had at least another 10 blocks to go, and we were late. Taxi summoned and we were delivered to our little laneway getaway. Our host was an interesting guy from Casablanca who has lived in Taipei with his Taiwanese wife for 15 years. He has another claim to fame: a local TV news crew broadcast a show on him, as he slightly resembles President Obama....and he really does! I couldn't get a shot of him, so you'll just have to imagine.
I ran into one of Cassy's old middle school colleagues, Pauli H., at Roxy Rocker on Friday. He was back in town for his mother-in-law's 70th birthday and is currently teaching Mandarin at Hong Kong International School. That's some mad skill: teaching Mandarin in a country of native speakers...impressive! Other pics are of Cass in her sickness earlier in the week enjoying some bed time with the girls, shots in the Tanjin restaurant and Taipei 101, now the world's second tallest building (damn you Dubai!) advertising the latest store to be housed in its accompanying mall.