One of the world's Youtube "5 minutes of fame" sensations was recruited to spend a week with our kiddies this week gone. John J has had a fleeting burst of "fame" as the double dream hands man, and has appeared on all the fluffy American shows like Ellen and America's Got Talent( where he was buzzed out rapidly in ignominious fashion!). I must say he was pretty good; even though he acted like a total goose throughout his short tenure, the kids were eating out of his hands. Anyone who can get a full auditorium of primary school kids hopping and a-bopping like he did has a rare talent. I took a few videos of the fun, starting with this and ending with this one. There are even more on Taipei Life's Youtube channel which is here.
Well, we're in a euphoric haze after the Aussies slaughtered the Poms in the return Ashes series first test in Brisbane. We were glued to the action for most of the weekend and only strayed away when there was a break in play or stumps were declared (3 pm our time). This meant a very subdued weekend in regard to daily excursions, but we did manage a hop, skip and jump across to Eat Burger and SOGO on Saturday afternoon/evening.
Even though we enjoyed a rare weekend of slouching around home and telly gazing, it's rare for us and I usually feel the need to get out and do something active or interesting on at least one of the days of the weekend. Feeling a little slovenly, I took stock of our activity meter and realized that we probably do pretty well most of the time. I do approximately 500 push-ups each and every week, get myself up the 1000 steps at irregular intervals and across to the coast to hit the surf occasionally. Cass pumps some iron on alternate days for her shoulders, biceps and triceps and does a massive cardio/anaerobic workout every Saturday by lugging all our shopping back from the supermarket through the park, across the bridge and through another park home (and before you say anything, I offer to help ALL the time, but the offer is politely refused!) Added to that are our Youbike adventures and our great long walks when we go downtown. The most constant and valuable exercise of all however, is our 40 minute walking commute each day. It's no chore: we rev up for the day ahead in the morning, debrief on the way home and never fail to spot some uniquely Taiwanese quirkiness or two daily!
Just because of this most magnificent healthy living we went down to Eat Burger on Saturday night to dilute some of our hard work! Wow, this burger is great....the freshness of the ingredients, the flavours etc. keep us coming back. The restaurant itself, as well as the nearby SOGO, have all their Christmas lights and trees going full on, despite the fact it is so far away and they have absolutely no cultural or religious link to this celebration at all: it is however, I suppose, yet another way to try and prise money from the consumer wallet. They got a few of our loose coins for dinner as well as for a Heat Tech scarf I bought at Uniqlo for my Christmas trip.
Where are we off to at Christmas break? Cass is making her fifth trip to France, this time reprising for the third time her TGV touring trip of three different French regions with her Mum. They will visit Paris, Lille, Strasbourg and Rheims this time. I suggested that she must have covered all areas of the country by now, but Cass begs to differ! Cass has all her fast train tickets bought and they have been delivered to us here. She'll meet Valerie in Hong Kong and they'll fly together to Paris. I've recently decided to go and see my old mate Gurecki in Nagasaki and check out his brand new school and home. I'll arrive in Fukuoka, spend a little time there and travel to Nagasaki. On my arrival home (mid-afternoon Christmas day) I plan to do a little east coast surfing tour here in Taiwan if I get motivated. The Boxing Day test, however, might tempt me to spend a little time at home though!
Photos: kid's party at school, road crossing, park renovations, kids in my room hard at work, SOGO and Eatburger Christmas and John J. I also included a map of the new and proposed MRT lines in the city: a new line linking our line all the way through to Xin Yi and Taipei 101 (no changes) just opened on Sunday....we'll check it out soon!