There is always a plethora of strange and/or interesting sights in our travels around the city. Cassy's book club on Wednesday provided me with an opportunity to travel the neighbourhood in search of food, which in turn, led to an entirely more complicated adventure.

Eat Burger was my destination, but finding it chock-a-block I decided to catch the MRT down to KGB. I found a similar hectic crowd at KGB, but managed to squeeze in at the end of a long table and enjoy my "Kiwi Mate" (see pic 1). On the way back to the station I snapped a quick shot of another of Taipei's ubiquitous roast chicken restaurants. As you can see, the whole bird is presented in the window and consumed at the tables!

The recent re-configuration of the metro lines saw me getting on the wrong train home! I felt like a real tourist when I had to go many stops out of my way to change to a line going back to the central Taipei station. From there I had to navigate through again to the Tamsui line: a 20 minute trip turned into nearly an hour!

Wol and I had a few of the interestingly named "White Beer"s on Friday night. Nelson Mandela's death has been a huge topic on the news this week and we couldn't help wondering what the great man might make of this branding.

Cass needed to visit her "bag man" downtown on the weekend, so we MRTed down to Chungshan station and wandered the backstreets to the shop. Order firmly placed, we contemplated sourcing some dinner downtown (stumbling upon the strangely named "Fatty Burger") before deciding to get off in Shilin and visit the elegant "Toro's", where we ordered the 6 course set with the ribeye steak....mouthwatering! We caught yet another train to stop off at Wendel's to get some bread before wandering home in the twinkling hustle of Saturday night in the big city.

Photos: Last day with my kids,KGB menu, strung-up chickens,sexual harassment on the trains, white beer and the less than enticing "Fatty Burger"!

I'm off to Nagasaki to see my old mate Gurecki next week while Cassy will visit Paris, Reims, Lille and Strasbourg with her Mum.....have a great holiday break one and all!

The sun leaked vapidly into the "girls' room" on the weekend, so different from the lavish flooding spills which usually heat and lighten the spot in winter. The sun's different winter angle has encouraged Cass to place Eugene's old basket in just the right spot to catch all the warmth, and Virg'nMary have absolutely lapped it up. When the insipid rays meekly filtered in on Saturday, Virgil came out to see Cass, led her into the room jumping, rubbing and meowing till she flopped into the basket, rolled around cutely and looked longingly at the window and Cassy in turns. The message was pretty plain: "Can you turn the sun on, please?" I decided that the cat was pretty stupid, but Cassy disagreed, now elevating her to one of the great cat intellects of our time... I'm yet to be convinced!

Memories of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader flooded back on the weekend when we went downtown to celebrate Shaun's birthday. Wal had decided to surprise him with a light sabre (of Star War's fame) of his very own. I'd been privy to the whole saga in the lead-up to the presentation. Each sabre is hand-made by some self-styled Star Wars' guru who lives in a tiny black hole of an apartment in the eastern Nangang districts of the city. He insisted that Wal pick it up in person, but only after he'd successfully answered a survey of questions on the franchise, which would deem him to be a worthy recipient of the sabre or not! Suffice to say, he passed the tests and the sabre is really something to behold. It makes all the requisite buzzes and hums, responding to movement and touch. The monastic Jabba the Hut wannabe even has mock battles using the sabres with his band of nerdy disciples on the weekends......I can imagine we'll all relent and get one soon!

Shaun has had some trouble lately, which I won't go into detail here, but suffice to say, he and his family have had an awkward and annoying time and I think they're pretty much "over it", so the party was really quite a welcome treat. We ended up having a really enjoyable time. The W Hotel was the venue, the Kitchen Table the restaurant and bar. It had a sleek, contempoarary presentation and the acid yellow colour scheme extended right through to the stylish individual bathrooms! The food was buffet style but of the most exquisite quality and freshness. Roast meats, French casseroles and grilled vegetables nestled alongside Asian cooked specialities, fresh seafood of bursting freshness, and melt-in-your-mouth sashimi and sushi. The desserts and accompaniements were of similar quality and although it was expensive, considering the quality of the food and the decor, not outrageous.

The outdoor bar area was our destination after dinner and although it was stunning and luxurious, with wet edge lap pools, day beds and lounges, neon lit chairs and table accents, it was quite cool in a literal sense! While the outdoor space heaters fought valiantly to ward off the chill, the breeze whipped through at regular intervals with Cassy declaring me quite gallant for draping my jacket around her as she stood shivering! The drinks came at a King's ransom, so it definitely won't be a regular destination. However, as we enjoyed the 10th floor facilities high above the madding hordes of this bustling Asian metropolis, gazing up to the 33rd floor bar soaring above and out to the Chrysler building copy and Taipei 101 beyond, we marveled at how slick and trendy our city was becoming. The evolution which started as a trickle ten or more years back has become a dizzying avalanche as the citizenry demand more and better and slicker and brighter as they keep up with the advancing Asian economic juggernaut.

We were far more mundane during the weekend days as we enjoyed the reemergence of a menacing Mitchell Johnson and his capable Australian team mates as they demolished the English squad once again to go two nil up in the current Ashes cricket series. What joy it is to revel in the Englishmen's collective pain!

Photos: Virg n Mary put up with a wilting sunlight and shots from the night out at the W Hotel (including the newly engaged Wal and Annie!)

We're always quite willing to affiliate ourselves with the Americans when special holidays roll around. This long weekend was no exception, and although we didn't immerse ourselves in any gluttonous turkey/pumpkin pie fests this year, we certainly basked in the time off allocated to those who work for American companies round the world.

In some ways, a four day weekend is a bit of a momentum killer and although we loved the time off, it was difficult to get back into our daily work routine today. As the days become shorter and the temperatures fall away, our daily pattern becomes just that little harder. Due to our very early start at school (we start teaching the kiddies at 7.45) we're up at 5.30 each day. It's dark for quite some considerable time in the morning these days and if we stay on for a meeting we're often walking home in the dark as well. As I mentioned last week, our daily walking commute is mostly enjoyable, but occasionally as the wind whips around us on a grey morning or dusky evening, it's less so!

Taipei continues to astound and delight us! We can now catch a Mass Rapid Transport (MRT) train from our local stop all the way through to Taipei 101 without changing! The city has been working steadily and furiously for some years underground to burrow through some of the most densely populated areas of the city to re-configure the MRT system. Through some logistical ballet of the most intricate kind, they have managed to seamlessly integrate this new line opening without the slightest hiccup, glitch or delay to normal transport in the city. It really is an engineering and planning miracle. Now, Taipei's largest city park, Daan, the Anhe road restaurant district as well as the 101 shopping precinct are all just 30 minutes away. The new line has also cleverly linked a number of others meaning some of our other popular destinations now involve just one change instead of two.

Suffice to say, we visited 101 and wandered the glittering hallways en route to Page One bookshop. Cass didn't get her book club book she was after, but we got some Tim Winton volumes for both Gurecki and friend from school, Jaami, who kindly lent us his carpark when Cass was wheelchair-bound. We then decided to get some Youbikes and have a little ride round the area. They were as easy to hire as I've previously described and we rode around for a bit before parking the bikes in the park outside and lunching at Longtable in the Xinyi district. We Youbiked back to the 101 station before heading home.

We spent the rest of the weekend doing all sorts of other interesting things, including excursions out to the movies, lots of eating out, either lunches or dinners and taking advantage of the beautiful late autumn/early winter days strolling round the neighbourhood and beyond. Mercifully, no monkeys were spotted on the 1000 steps and Taipei 101 was appreciated from a different perspective, almost like an inkwash Chinese watercolour style.

Photos: Cass at the local French deli/coffee shop buying some quiche ( the French guy who runs it is an excellent cook!), Astro Boy retains his popularity as Virgil suns herself in a spot by the door. Taipei 101 is now the second tallest building in the world but claims it is, "Mankind's Greatest Engineering Achievment". Cass poses beside a sculpture made from the replaced elevator cables: apparently long enough to reach around the island! The building still inspires awe from ground level, Youbike station and shots from the 1000 steps and Tienmu Gudao trail up top.