Oh, it's a sweet gig on occasions working in an American school! The Thanksgiving extended weekend gave us a chance to relax, recuperate and re-charge for the countdown into Christmas of parent receptions and speeches (Cass), and all the associated hoopla of tests and reports and parent conferences for the end of the semester.

We went downtown on Thursday evening for what would pass as our Thanksgiving feast after demurring on a very kind invitation from some friends to join them for turkey and pumpkin pie and all the trimmings. All the invitees have hordes of little kids, so we weren't sure we were up for all the excitement on this occasion! Instead, we taxied down to Romano's Macaroni Grill (see video above) to wine and dine Italian style, including the most superb operatic accompaniment from a tiny local singer! How did she produce such volume and range from that tiny frame? The meal was superb and we savoured each course in turn, Cassy declaring she had at least two new favourites.

We were keen to get out in the evening after the day had been spent watching some wonderful test cricket on my iPad app streaming through Apple TV onto the HD TV. Somehow, the Vodafone app has not realized we are not in Australia so it has not been "geo-blocked". I paid the princely sum of $12.99 for a season pass of all tests, one-dayers and the Twenty20s so we're able to watch to our heart's content. As Thursday was a dreary, rainy and miserable day, we felt no guilt putting the feet up and enjoying a great batting display from the Aussies.

Friday was a similarly lazy day, but I did get myself downtown again, braving the Saturday evening crush on the MRT to source some travel books for my darling wife. Cassy seems slightly unimpressed by the apps I have downloaded onto the iPad and phone for our trip, so I decided I would indulge her need for hard-copy books and get them at the cavernous "PageOne" bookstore in the famous 101 building in Hsin Yi. After being bodily train crushed for 45 minutes or so, I was eventually spat out to stroll for another 20 minutes or so through to the 101. I managed to find some pretty comprehensive guides to Krakow, Berlin and Budapest, the three cities we're planning to visit this Christmas (more later), before getting back to re-join Shaun and Wol for a couple of beers at Ulis after their long, wet day playing golf at one of Taiwan's most elite courses.

I got up before 5 a.m. on Saturday! Yes, really nuts, I know, but Danno had messaged me the night before saying he and Zef along with his visiting brother John were going to head to the infamous "Greenball" to catch the approaching high tide. As it is strewn with razor sharp rocks in the paddle out/clean up zone, it's always a good idea to go when there is just a wash of water at least over the top of the rocky carpet! It ended up being a really good session but I was terribly rusty in my skills. In turn, the car decided to have braking issues on the way over the mountain, so I cautiously came the long way home on the flats through Sanji and Damshui. I called in to the Pillbox for old times sake, and even though the tide was not ideal, it was still shaping up quite nicely. Check the story on pointyhat here. Oh by the way, after nearly 5 hours away, I still managed to wake a certain sleeping beauty when I got back!!

I continue to ache today from all my stretched and underused "surfing muscles", but was very stiff and sore yesterday! More cricket was watched, we went and did some shopping, then went down to Eddie's Cantina for an early dnner. The weather had cleaned up and it was a gorgeous autumn night so we walked there and back. It was a delightful end to what had been a very relaxing break.

Photos: a farewell card we made for one of Cassy's departing colleagues, a shot in the lift going down from Macaroni Grill, various scenes of Hsin Yi nighttime glitz, country cooking chickens and their wood burning pots near the Pillbox and a fake workman in the middle of the road. The last shot is of a very rare, deserted corridor at school taken on a Sunday, where against every tenet of my personal religion, I went into work to crunch some numbers for reports!

Our neighbours below us came and visited through the week with their new baby and we "oohed" and ahhed" at how cute the bubba was and caught up with happenings. We attended Linda and Jim's wedding a while back and were amazed to find that they're still below us living with Linda's dad: they're so quiet! Linda delivered some mountain fresh baby bananas for Cass. We're always on tenterhooks when they visit thinking they might be asking us to move out, but I suppose they're not prepared to pay the rent we're paying just yet: always a relief!

As usual, the Polish Nation convened on the Friday night and we progressed from Uli's to a nearby beer house/restaurant for further good cheer (see pictured above). We've got a short week this week for the much anticipated and loved American tradition of Thanksgiving: apart from a single day off for Taiwan's national day, we haven't had a break since we got back in early August. The four day weekend starts on Wednesday evening with the school putting on a show for all faculty and their families with all the trappings of Turkey, ham and cooked accompaniments  It's a bit of a free-for-all, with hundreds of people descending upon the lines of bain-maries with a gusto not dissimilar to a flock of seagulls on a double lot of fresh hot chips and has to be seen to be believed!

I've been embroiled with an intense round of testing using brand new materials this week, so the repite will be very welcome. Luckily, being the first time with unknown materials, the bosses have allowed us a whole week off classes to get it all done, but it has been necessary. The one-on-one testing then the intricate scoring process have been ardudous, and the multiple numbers and number crunching necessary have tested my rusty Mathematics' skills which were never very good to begin with! Cass has had a similarly hectic regimen and has been writing, wordsmithing and rehearsing her speech which needs to be delivered at the Grade 8 parent reception next week at the American Club in China. It is a formal affair to fete the parents and she is feeling the pressure after being nominated as one of the leaders who will speak at the event by her principal. We'll both welcome the break!

Walking home today, we reminisced a little further on how times have changed here over the last decade or so. When we first arrived, we remember people looking quizzically at us when we mentioned how ugly everything was! The buildings looked (and still do) like sad shells not out of place in a war torn Beirut suburb, but we've come to appreciate that the sulphurous air from the nearby steaming and belching fumaroles play havoc on their originally pristine facades. We tend to look by default now at the mountains of Yangminshan piercing the sky at critical angles, the clouds flowing by their peaks and the beauty of a gentle people going about their work and play at all times of the day and night as we pass by.

Walking to school in the morning, we pass by languid, body-waving Tai Chi practitioners, usually of a very advanced age! Dogs of all shapes and sizes are exercised, all with a similarly docile personality to that of their owners, while teams of neon-vested cleaners use rough straw brooms to sweep up falling buds from the autumn trees and scoop up any fallen scraps of paper or dirt. It's a far cry from years before, when rotting piles of garbage could still be spied on street corners and the fetid waft of putrefying matter would assault the senses every time we walked past an open drain. The parks are now meticulously cared for and are a delight to walk through and past. There are crossing guards at every major intersection and although drivers still ignore a lone pedestrian at a crossing, these capable law abiding human missiles throw themselves in harm's way to protect you as long as you wait for their signal!

I feel as if I've just written this blog (don't tell me all this talk of ten years has seen me run out of puff?!), so I'll end here with another installment due next Monday. Our weekend was spent on a killing spree of sorts, and, before you become too alarmed, we were just watching the mesmerizing second series of "The Killing" that I'd downloaded some time back. The weather was dank and dark and uninviting, so hunkering down with some books and televisual treats seemed very appropriate! With the Thanksgiving weekend approaching, we might have more to report next week.

Monday, November 11, 2002

We've just started our web page to see how we go.
Hopefully, this will be an interesting way for people to catch up with what we are doing.
Posted by david at 8:31 AM  

Who could have guessed that very first entry on this blog could have spawned the gargantuan, sprawling tome that this has morphed into? I think that if I knew at the time, I never would have started! It has been an amazing experience though, being able to map out so carefully all the important experiences and all the feelings that we've experienced during a decade of "blogging". Even though I've always been sensitive to the public nature of this record, and therefore may not always have been as brutally candid as I might have liked, I'm sure readers who know us have been able to read between the lines and make the correct inferences, whether thoughts were overtly stated or not. If you have enjoyed keeping up with our adventures, thanks for making my toil worthwhile, although I do feel some pity for you as you must have read lots of drivel about minutia over the years!

My greatest regret is that I didn't discover blogs (did they exist?) a year and 4 months earlier. By the time of that first entry, we'd gone through the early flush of shock and awe that being in a foreign country to live and work can bring. We'd gone through the euphoria of communicating with the locals for the first time and making ourselves understood. We'd discovered some of the weirder and more wonderful aspects of Taipei and Taiwanese culture for the first time. How might we have reported these things? In fact, what were they? Unfortunately, we have no record of those heady days but we can remember the pure shock and exhilaration of new discoveries each and every day.

Now in our 12th year in Taiwan, it's interesting to step back a little and take stock of what's happened. Consumerwise, we're on our 4th TV, our 4th DVD player, our 4th desktop computer, 3rd microwave, 3rd toaster oven and 2nd washing machine. Our original fridge, toaster, blender, rice cooker and stereo are still hanging in there, the stereo having started life at Fletcher Street. When we arrived, we were on dial up internet along with Chinese TV channels plus CNN. Now, for the last 3 years, we've had 10M download and upload speeds on cable modem with unlimited data plans and HD cable TV channels (x107!) including Australia Network. It's certainly been a mind bending tech trip for a gadget man like me to live in one of the world's most saturated tech societies for the past decade and more.

We despaired for some years about ever being able to source the foods we thought we needed from the local supermarkets as well as being able to dine out beyond the evil smelling "slop kitchens" which jostled for position along the main streets and back alleys with a depressing sameness of look and fare. Now, of course, we're spoiled for choice in terms of supermarkets, although the weekly shop has now become more problematic as we need to go to 4 different places to source the necessary supplies! Cass does, however, make a weekly trip back to the local "Wellcome" supermarket where the choices are (how to put it...?!), less overwhelming! Restaurants in Taipei now rival any of the great cities of the world. Gone are the days where a "different" or "Western" meal meant traveling to the local KFC. Chinese fusion along with all of the world's great cuisines vie for the gastronomic dollar all over the city. You only have to check out one of my other favourite local bloggers, Hungry Girl, to get an idea of how many restaurants are popping up every week: finding a new spot or two certainly entertains us most weekends and holidays!

Over the next few weeks, I might reminisce how a few other aspects of our life here have changed over the years of this blog. This week, we had a fun-filled Saturday where we ventured into the big metropolis by train to dine at one of Cassy's all time favourites, Aubergine, which can now only be found in the middle of the thriving downtown. After the meal, we inhaled some of the inner city's exciting vibe and did some people watching as we tried to stroll along quite chaotic footpaths filled with people scurrying here and there, dining, dating or dilettanting! We walked by a Cartier shop and Cass arranged to order a new watchband as hers is starting to perish a little. It has to come from France, so we'll be making another trip down there at some stage. We contemplated taking a cab home, but we decided to do the two train shuffle again on the way back: we decided we're not too old yet to handle a bit of old fashioned commuter sandwiching in the weekend night crush.

To sum up, after numerous peaks and troughs, Taipei is now our home and in some respects, we feel more comfortable here than back in Australia. In saying that, however, we're Aussies and we belong in Australia at some point. It will certainly take a period of adjustment when we do come back to live after this incredible adventure. This, by the way, is not a hint that we're on our way home anytime soon: I can categorically state, however, that this blog will not get anywhere near a 15th anniversary! Cassy's reading Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro and Dave is reading A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. See you next week!

Cass had her parent conferences this week and she endured a punishing schedule over the two full days of interviews. Stadium style interviews with parents vaguely restricted to alphabetically delineated chunks on each day, she barely paused for breath. On one day she looked up from her lunch break and was surprised to see it was 3.50 in the afternoon! It's a full-on assignment, but no better solution is really available when you have to see nearly 100 sets of parents to report progress.

I brought the car home on Wednesday in anticipation of rain the following day so that I could transport Cass in her special finery to school without getting saturated. The second photo above shows my park on the other side of the river from our place. I wouldn't dream of attempting this park back home, but as it's often the only option (squeezing into a tiny space), I duly backed and filled to fit the car in. Most cars in Taipei have associated scrapes and bangs on front and back bumpers as a result!

I've continued the tradition of adopting out my toy monkey, Chee Chee with my current fifth graders. Although I was a little wary of how they'd take this seemingly babyish concept at first, they're great kids and have embraced it at another level. Although they seem incredulous that I act like he is a real monkey, when they come back and report on their stay with him, they invariably have tales of him learning musical instruments, eating and drinking a lot and even talking and moving around the house. The latest adopter even exalted Chee Chee to his highest status yet: that of a saint! See photo above.

The Polish Nation met on Friday afternoon/evening and we were honoured with Cassy's presence and she reported she slept like the dead after her couple of North Taiwan, German style ales! Wol and Gurecki were in attendance as always and many a tall tale and true were shared.

My kiddies are in the throes of early semester testing and I caught a shot of them in relaxed mode before they started and also in all earnestness as they attempted a writing sample. These are just "reference point" tests as we're taking on a whole new system this year which will entail us taking a whole week off class to do the one-on-one testing necessary. It will be nerve wracking as we've never done it before, but after a few days training we feel a little better able to face the new paradigm.

Cass and I hugely enjoyed the brilliant new Bond film on the weekend, Skyfall. This really has to be the best ever. Afterwards, we retired to Thai Town and ate a lot of fried stuff, which is very unusual for us. The fish looked recriminatingly at us throughout, so, suitably reproached, I think we'll revert back to our largely steamed based fare from now on!

A little video is posted up top of a class pet in one of the classes in which I work: he's quite a sensation!

Apologies to be both late and brief this week...next week is a special edition for a special reason!