After an age of waiting, we were finally gifted a gorgeous spring weekend, dappled light and sun together with a refreshing breeze and a perfect temperature: and it lasted all weekend! There's something about weather like this that can lift the most deflated mood from a slough to a quiet euphoria, not that we were experiencing anything quite like the former. Despite a crush of end-of-year work with grades and reports and rapidly approaching deadlines, we've managed to maintain our usual high level of life enthusiasm, partly I suspect, because an extra long holiday looms invitingly just ahead.
I haven't seen an Olympics properly since Sydney in 2000. There, just before our overseas odyssey began, we saw lots of television coverage and were lucky enough to attend more than a few significant events. One of my minor claims to fame is being able to recite the hosting city of the Olympics for this century as well, mainly because I've always been fascinated with this greatest of sporting contests. Taiwan doesn't place any emphasis on this spectacle at all, and Athens and Beijing slipped past with barely a half hearted salute, a few games of table tennis or Tae Kwon Doo featuring Taiwanese athletes the exception.
I was stoked, therefore, when we discovered that due to a calendar recalibration here at school, we were gifted an extra week's holiday this year. This would mean we could be home for the first week or so of the London games. After much consternation we were able to extend our break by a week, the main trouble being our redemption air tickets being difficult to move. By the way, don't anyone ever say that frequent flyer miles' redemption is a myth, or unobtainable. This is the 4th time we've flown on miles to Australia and return and we've also upgraded to business a few times. You just have to spend a lot of money on your credit card and enlarge your carbon footprint mightily! Anyway, after countless fruitless and frustrating sessions on the phone in a queue, I went down to the Cathay Pacific office downtown to try to sort things out. The staff there were sympathetic and, in a universal truth, respond well to politeness and patience rather than belligerence and anger. Just an hour or so later, I had an employee on the phone confirming that they'd made the change: they'd even bumped us a grade to the new premium economy on return...satisfying!
We went down to indulge in Cassy's favourite treat for a twilight meal in the balmy Saturday evening temps at Wendel's Backerei. At this famous German style restaurant we ate our favoured smoked salmon salads, melt-in-the-mouth sauteed mushrooms before we both elected to have the grilled beef fillet steak with breaded broccoli sides, pepper sauce and a tower of gnocchi and spinach. Cass brought along a half bottle of Veuve Cliquot to slake her thirst and I had just a sip or two! It was a wonderful meal and we had a very relaxing time, and we were able to get the bread supply for the week at the bakery attached as well. Cassy had also ordered a scrumptious tart for us to pick up, which she'd claimed from a loyalty card at the bakery: it too turned out to be absolutely delicious when we sampled a slab later on that night and again on Sunday. On the way home, I dashed in to Carrefour to get some mundane household supplies while Cass warmed the marble bench outside and watched the world go by.
We just luxuriated in the splendid weather again on Sunday and I again braved the 1000 steps. A misnomer of some proportion as it turned out because on my unofficial count going back down, there are actually 1420 steps of varying gradients and depths! On the path up top on my warm down, I heard some ominous rustling, grunting and barking as a troop of Formosan Macaques foraged and pillaged in the bamboo stands amongst the forest just off the path. I was quick to hustle through that section: those guys are scary!
Back home to an afternoon of disappointing Newcastle Knights, which in fact, proved to be the only sour note in an otherwise well orchestrated concert of a weekend. School today brought with it a crash to earth: strange requests which will demand more of our time and a gratuitous meeting after hours just to top it off!
Photos: a serious Dave discusses some school issues with colleague Dave, steps shots, girls in a basket, a shot of the petrol station (which I'll discuss in subsequent blogs...quite different and interesting!) the Honda gathering dust in the garage (we're walkers, scooterers and trainers here in Taipei) and Cass enjoying our twilight feast at Wendel's.