This weekend was an another exercise in equal measures of frustration and patience, basically because the weather again proved to be extremely un-cooperative. When we wanted/ needed to get out to do some errands or entertain ourselves, the heavens opened with torrential downpours and swirling gusts, while the gods seemed content to leave us in peace when we arrived back or didn't feel like going anywhere: "February made me shiver, with every paper I delivered..." or something like that!

We did break free of the synoptic shackles on Sunday to brave some fairly intense cold and annoying drizzle to travel down to the Shida area of town. The blocks, laneways and streets surrounding the Taiwan University campus blossom with indie clothing and bookstores, quirky cafes and restaurants and all manner of establishments catering to the relatively down-at-heel but needy university student. It's an exciting part of town and one that we've only really brushed around the edges of. This day, we dived right in, no destination in mind, perhaps a bite to eat if we saw something interesting, but more to wander and get lost before (hopefully!) emerging from the labyrinthine maze of winding alleys and pathways to wend our way homewards.

We passed by our much loved KGB burger and thought we'd save it for later if we got stuck, but we were confident of finding plenty of other spots along the way. Early Sunday afternoon must be one of those hibernating times for the local uni student, as we passed lots of interesting shops and eateries, but many were closed for the day. A little like the Shilin night markets, all indications were that this place really comes alive, not just when the sun goes down, but well into the recesses of the night. It certainly was enjoyable checking the scene and after we were rejected by a couple of spots because they were full up (probably because of the paucity of open establishments), we cheerfully made our way back to KGB for the best burgers in Taipei city!

They have re-vamped the menu and now include some setts and combos and their new homemade tomato vegetable soup was hearty, spicy and delicious. Neither one of us could tear ourselves away from the "Kiwi Mate" with its unusual (for Taipei)option of added pineapple and beetroot, Cass with the lentil patty while I opted for the 100% pure NZ beef....what a feast! We each got a brownie to take home and Cassy's chocolate and my peppermint slices were mouthwatering for supper later that night.

We strolled onwards after our filling repast across to the western end of Shida Road and established that a restaurant/bar we'd visited many years ago still seemed to be surviving despite our lack of custom, although it too was closed up against the uninviting cold and rain. We walked through the backstreets further and further from the station until I resorted to firing up the GPS on the phone to get us out of the backstreets! We weren't far away from the station just down the line, so we eventually found our way back via Mingde Road where we did the grocery shopping together on the way home.

Still fairly consumed by a heavy workload at the moment, neither one of us has been reading a lot: I'm still plowing through my Kennedy "King" while Cassy perseveres with her Japanese gentleman! Photos are a mixed bunch: we took 150 third graders to the pictures to see "Hugo" mid week through the Tienmu streets producing a kaleidoscope of umbrellas. Shida sights, included the uniquely Taiwanese "running man" on the walk signal. Chocolate and cake collections were diametrically opposed to the succulent fresh fruit and vegies at the local supermarket, while Taiwan metro phone etiquette and puppets on the back of a truck vied for strange sight of the week. I've also included a new video which I think is kinda cool...check it out above or here.

Oh, and how about this? It was 32 years ago yesterday, that two 17 year old uni aspirants met at a welcome BBQ: we're still having lots of fun!

 

We were greeted by the plaintive wailing of a fire engine as it hurtled into our tiny lane just ahead of us midweek on the way back from school. after a momentary panic until we assured ourselves it had stopped just short of our place we proceeded to watch the firemen swiftly and efficiently cut through the security bars on the apartment down the way (makes you wonder why anyone has them: they went through them like a hot knife through butter) and extinguished some kind of smouldering fire that was pumping smoke from the big silver kitchen vent. Check above photo for the ingenious way to get fire trucks down all these narrow nooks and crannies: just make them in miniature form...they're kind of cute!

This weekend was cold! We're not sure if it's the last hurrah of the long winter, but we hope it is. As is the way in Taiwan, the mercury drop is not quite as dramatic as the "real feel": the saturating humidity makes it a dank and unpleasant cold, seeping slowly through to the bone. It's certainly not as dramatic as a European sleeting cold, or a still, serene Japanese freeze, but in a lot of ways it feels so much colder. As Cassy often says, maybe we've, "Turned Taiwanese"!

We rugged up and glided down to Ximending on the MRT on Sunday. We changed at Taipei Main Station and took our usual off-shoot line, but unusually this time, we went west instead of east. The old suburb of Ximending grew up around the now razed west gate of the city and is known for the historic Red Theatre, along with the more recent attractions of KTV and movie theatres along with the plethora of stores and restaurants catering to the young people of Taipei. Many of these youngies are also trying to emulate the pop culture of Japan, so stores have an eclectic mix of fashion and trinkets and everything in between. If it's cute and crazy-trendy, you can find it (usually many times over!) in Ximending. One of the lesser publicised areas of the suburb, especially round the red theatre, is an enclave of shops and bars catering to the young gay population of the city, and we had an interesting experience here, which I'll save for a bit later.

We wandered the streets and found all sorts of weird and wonderful things to check out before eventually getting a little peckish and deciding to have lunch up on the 5th floor of one of the buildings in a side street. Cucina Italiano was a pretty standard set-style restaurant with a nod to all things Italian, but offering a fusion menu of Taiwanese/Italian and extras. It was crazy cheap and surprisingly delicious. After a set including salad, soup, main meal, dessert and coffee, we paid slightly less than $20 in total. For that you'd expect some lesser quality gear, but my dinner, for example, was exactly the opposite: spicy prawn fried rice with 7 large fresh prawns on top!

After lunch we drifted across to some market marquees that Cass had noticed being set up in and around the Red Theatre since we'd arrived earlier. All the stalls had great quality handmade stuff of one variety or another, but all of it was top quality. Unlike a lot of fare in the night markets, which can be cheap and tacky, these stalls were housed by real artisans. There were all sorts of one-off design T-shirts, soups, jewelry, artworks, lights, hair combs etc. etc. I tried on an amazing T-shirt, but even though it was extra-large, it was still a bit tight. I know, I'm huge! Seriously though, it caused quite a stir as I tried it on and tried to make it fit!

Drifting out the end, we wandered past shops with some seriously raunchy and graphic photos of impossibly well-toned and hunky men really getting it on. One such shop stocked an amazing range of men's underwear but also had a rack of Billabong board-shorts on sale outside. After trying on a pair in the miniscule curtained off area inside, I'm now the proud owner of two pairs of top quality, genuine board-shorts. The undies looked pretty good too: might get some of them next time!

Cass got herself some seriously hot high heeled suede boots at the local SOGO on the way home: she'd had her eye on them for a little while, but finally decided to take the plunge and get them. So, we had a little retail therapy, but most of all just enjoyed the day out in a very different part of town than the ones we usually inhabit. The excitement was all a bit too much for us later in the evening as we were both exhausted, again necessitating the late arrival of this blog: I'll try to get back on track next week, promise!

Photos: the fire drama and some of the sights from the streets of Ximending.

 

Cass and I got “Noddy” the car fired up and pointed beachside on Saturday morning although I made a deliberate and calculated move not to include any surfboard, surfing paraphernalia or anything else that might tempt me into the water when we got there. Yangminshan mountain’s snaking route was as busy as ever, possibly more so because of the upcoming flower festival and the possibility of an early glimpse of blushing cherry trees. Flower watchers would have been very disappointed, however, as when the heights of the fumaroles were breached, we plunged into a pea soup fog, a quite ethereal Wuthering Heights moor’s type mist and a languid yet dangerous caravan of overly cautious, oft-breaking drivers in Nissan Cefiros!

Skidding off the mountain slopes and to the relative safety of the coastal road, the seeping sky didn’t relent all the way round. Past the eight spinning wind turbines in the shadow of the nuclear power plant, the restaurant on the back of a truck still plying a trade even after its principal attraction (a beached cargo ship) has been salvaged and hauled away, then threading through the depressingly gray wind and wave-whipped coastal hamlets, Noddy purred her way right through to Greenball. The surf looked really enticing and I was glad I’d removed all temptation to enter the water and possibly re-injure my healing ribcage. We met Dan and family as well as some of the other local surfer boys I’ve got to know over the years: one tiny benefit from my injury might be that it will scare them away from Nan Ao for a little longer, judging by the look of horror on their faces when I recounted the “incident”!

After a brief stop we decided to motor back on round to Jinshan township to again sample the delights of the anomalous “Victoria” restaurant. Others have obviously been similarly wooed by Victoria’s charms as we were informed there would be a half hour wait for a table for two! Undeterred in our quest for food, we simply wandered across the road to the far less salubrious, but equally convenient 7/11 for our lunch. Some of these super 7/11s over here have to be seen to be believed and with the recent addition of the “City Café” coffee shops within, they are almost rivals to the local restaurants. We simply selected our items, had them “nuked” if needed, ordered our cappuccinos, then sat at their clean and serviceable dining area to enjoy the meal. Maybe not quite the Victoria experience, but also about a 10^th of the price!

Cass had succumbed to an annoying cold late in the week, so she was more than content to luxuriate in the comfort of the car on our trip through the mists on Saturday, and also to snuggle on the lounge with the cats and watch the one day cricket on Sunday.  After the first innings, I was determined to get myself moving and she felt similarly “stir crazy” as we had schlepped our way round the house all day! We decided on separate walking/hiking adventures to suit our different energy levels and each departed on our planned route. Cass went down to Sogo and marveled at how many people seemed to have broken from their winter chrysalis to soak up the early spring blaze of sun, intense blue skies and the caress of some bone-thawing warmer temperatures. The butterflies had finally broken free of their pupas!

I rode the scooter up behind section 7 and beyond the “back steps” where I often start a hike, all the way to a set of steps near the horse stables I had spied as we whizzed by on Saturday. Where they led and for how far was anyone’s guess, but I was determined to track their early path at least. They went up at an alarming gradient at first and continued this way before flattening out slightly and briefly every now and again before again tilting skywards. The path pierced the terraced slopes of lush and verdant plots and gardens, all nurturing edible plants in various stages of maturity. The tiny buds were fragile, yet you could almost hear the cold snap of mountain freshness from some ample and bursting leafy pickings! I stopped from time to time to catch my breath as well as to capture a scene on the camera: the photos above don’t really do the scene justice, as I think all five senses are necessary to really get the feel of the day. I hiked ever upward, until I came to the road we often travel on the way up Yangminshan.

At this point, I was quite prepared to stop, and probably should have as both my rib (from the full expansion breaths I was huffing!) and my dodgy knee were both acting up a bit. I did spy the path continuing ever upwards on the other side of the road, so decided to investigate a little further. The next flight was long and steep but leveled out on a ridge of the mountain. There was a car park and a garishly decorated temple along with a simple sign indicating the path continuing as it meandered and disappeared through some marsh grasses down the slope and away: intriguing! Back down the mountain I went and arrived back some hours after I expected to. I was extremely pleased with my afternoon out in the soothing beams and bucolic plots, idling as they did alongside an ever-present stream which bustled through sluices and dykes all the way down the hill alongside the path.

Photos are of Virgy sprawled in the morning sun, the green splendour of Yangminshan’s foothills along with a tiny baby taking his car for a spin and my tragic old ugg boots, which are literally and very publicly falling apart!

Again, I’m in a position where I need to offer a soft apology to any readers I may have, as this post is drastically late and may again fixate on my real or imagined woes. We’ve really had a largely uninspiring couple of weeks: we need to pop this apathetic bubble methinks!

The previous week at school was an interesting one. The lower division has engaged the services of the “world renowned” Columbia Teachers’ College reading and writing project as developers of our reading and writing workshops that we have implemented for the past 4 years. The details are many and in the main, perhaps boring for anyone not in that narrow teaching domain, so I’ll not list them here. What has fascinated me more than anything has been the fervor with which the arrival of the two representatives and their ideas has been met.

Initially swept along with the almost religious zeal that greeted their every pronouncement and teaching tactic, I reflected that most of what was being demonstrated was a re-badging of tried and true tactics of good teachers everywhere of any age. Intuitively, good teachers know how to nurture, cajole, encourage and also when to do these things to let the full potential of students flourish. My mum was taught to teach in different terms than us but found her own highly successful path. I’m sure my niece, if she decides to follow an elementary teaching path, will have different catch-phrases, terminology and jargon in her lexicon than Cass and me.  However, each teacher will learn that most basic truism: if you treat students with empathy and affection while you teach, they will learn for you, no matter what the flavour of the day demands you say or do in each lesson.

It was with this in mind that I gained some new passion in a core area that the presenters were concentrating on. It’s always great to grab a couple of little moments where you can think to yourself, “Oh yeh, I could definitely use that, or at least modify that to suit my style”. More often than not, when undergoing some professional development treatment, experienced teachers are reminded of things they used to do, but for some reason or another have forgotten, or have let fall out of their daily pedagogical “bag o’ tricks”. The disturbing thoughts I had through the week were not of these personal insights, but more of some of my colleagues and their re-actions to some of the “revelations”: surely they couldn’t be understanding some of these basic teaching concepts for the first time? Oh well, maybe they were (sad), or maybe they were just better actors than me (more possible)!

Cass has been an effervescent nurse for me through the week as my rib fracture pain and inconvenience vacillates between moderate and horrid. She has tried to cajole me when I get frustrated at not doing any exercise and has been bright and cheery in response to my more than occasional despondent moods. My worst fear came true on Sunday, (partly why this blog entry was delayed) when I started to cough and sneeze from a cold. At least Cassy’s dad had given me a good tip: just let the sneeze explode right out and don’t stifle it. The speech inhibiting, eyes-watering pain only lasted a minute or two, but it made me dread that next nose tickle!

Our terabyte external hard drive decided to have a mild spasm recently too and we currently have our computer doctor checking whether we can retrieve anything from it. All our photos from the last 5 years or so are on it, so we’re hoping for a positive outcome…at least we have a few on this blog of our travels if all else fails!

As my rib improves day by day, I’ve made a pact with myself to do something very nice for my darling wife this weekend to thank her for putting up with all my grumbling! We’re still on the same books as last week and photos are rather slim pickings…The Hello Kitty photo is exclusively for my sister and niece, Helen and Lucy, which I snapped at the local 7/11. The serviette holder photo is for Valerie....Cass wants to know if you want one of these? Finally, my owner's card for Racing Victoria....I'll leave that as a little mystery!