After the dramatic and frivolous travelling of last weekend, the best we could muster this weekend was a mild "staycation" at our charming Taipei abode. No triumphal returns of rock gods announced in fire and light, but rather the quick flush of desert flowers on my school cactus. Not even the exotic japanese fare of the Oasis in Osaka, but rather a couple of sandwiches at the local Taipei Coffee Museum. (One of them was, however, a "fruit sandwich": not sure if that's exotic or just plain weird!)

We really had a "back-to-earth" type of break this weekend after a full working week hot on the heels of the manic action of last weekend's jaunt to Summer Sonic in Osaka. We managed a mild outing on Sunday round to the Wovie cinema complex in Tienmu to catch "Lucy" before lunching at the coffee museum in the afternoon. Apart from that, we just went through the motions of those domestic necessities that need to be attended to regularly and lazing around.

I reprised my role as beer drinker and all round conversationalist with Wal and Rock on Friday night and we had a few guest appearances from old friends and newly hired folk who seemed interesting. We managed to spend quite an amount of time at Ulis before retiring to calmer pastures to watch multiple games of AFL and NRL. It was a good chance to catch up with summer/winter adventures, as I hadn't had much opportunity for a chat up till now.

I have a group of 17 kids in my bowling alley shaped classroom for my pull out language support class this semester, so I've had to re-arrange a few things to accommodate them. You'll notice that I've extended the "grandstand" and got rid of my coffee table as well as bringing in some more chairs. More shunting of non-negotiables like Kevin the Kangaroo (now straddling the lights above the white board) and Circus Jesus (who currently pontificates from the shelf near the windows), has meant I'm just able to squeeze them all in. I'm careful not to get overly dramatic in my lessons though, in fear of taking a few of them out with some extravagant gestures!

"Lucy" wasn't bad but was really just an escapist hour or two, hardly worth a thought afterwards. We're finding that this is the mark of a good movie for us: one that resonates after the viewing for a while, making us ponder some question or other, if not just how they produced some incredible special effect or two! The lunch afterwards consisted of a club sandwich for me and a fruit sandwich for Cass. We had no idea what might arrive as the ingredients on the menu were written in indecipherable characters. Mine was reasonably standard, Cassy's consisted of apple, guava and ? with lettuce on a regular bun....she reported it to be pretty good!

Photos are of my amazing cactus which sits on the ledge outside my classroom window. Just goes to show that total neglect can still produce something of worth: the flowers lasted about a day from their subtle unfurling from the pod before withering and wilting away. I found it all quite fascinating! Cassy eating lunch both in my class and at the coffee museum, a dummy worker in the back of a truck we spied on the walk home from school, ornithologists in our local park getting some shots of new born chicks, and a packed class of busy kids.

There are rare occasions when it's refreshing to do something just a little bit crazy, take a chance and just see if it works, just because you can and life is short.

After two months back in Australia, we got back to our Taipei life for a week and a half, meeting our new colleagues and kids, greeting old friends and settling in before we flew to Japan for the weekend! Friday afternoon dash to the airport straight from school and back home again on Sunday evening...what a blast!

We seem to be ticking off items on "dream lists" as we go through life and one of the ones which had surely been missed was to see Queen in concert. Cassy has always wanted to see her favourite band live and although we had a chance decades ago we baulked at the ticket prices and the dream was unfulfilled...until now! I spotted Queen were doing a world tour with Adam Lambert, but the Australian dates were after we'd left. As chance would have it they were playing shows in Japan and Korea before Australia and North America, and they would be the headline performers on day one of the Summer Sonic music festival in Osaka, Japan. The irony, of course, is that the weekend was just a tad more expensive than those tickets years ago would have been!

Anyway, new airline Peach whisked us back and forth between countries and the whisper efficient Japanese transport network ferried us to and from the airport and around the city so crisply for the couple of days. Our hotel was right at the end of the airport railway link and we went straight from train to room on the 31st floor with a panoramic view of the city.  I was a little surprised to be able to launch straight into the vernacular so easily...even though my vocabulary is terribly rusty, it makes life so much easier to converse in the local language. The sights and sounds and smells of Japan were delightful and "natsukashi" (nostalgic) for me and Cassy just delights in everything Japanese: "I think Japan really suits me, I could live here". We shopped at tiny stores, ate in cafes and station curry houses, all the while marveling again and again at Japanese efficiency, politeness and cleanliness.

The task of arriving at the concert grounds was akin to a military operation. We got from hotel to Sakurajima station via two trains, then walked, shuttled bussed and walked again to arrive. We were given a "not to be replaced" wristband in exchange for our paper tickets and then had carte blanche to explore the entire vast estate of rock. Five different stages and an "Oasis" of food and drink in the middle was the recipe for a musical smorgasbord that we feasted upon for the next 10 hours or so. We bopped along to Japanese boy bands and enjoyed the ethereal alternatives like Banks on the Mountain Stage. At the Sonic Stage  we enjoyed bands like English Charlie xcx and the electronic funk monkeys Metronomy. We wandered in and around venues, eating and drinking in between and soaking up a myriad of sights and sounds in the hours leading up to the main events. Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi fame was an engaging and talented artist on the main stage and shared a symbiotic  partnership with his co-headliner, the Australian female guitar sensation, Orianthi. Let's rock!

The super cute and energetic Avril Lavigne was the warm-up act for Queen and she was a hard act to follow. Cass actually saw her here in Taipei a few years ago, and I was kinda keen to duck her so we could see Kasabian up on the mountain. In the end we had to lock in our positions to get a good spot for the headliners, so we had to stay and well, check this out! Well and truly in the mood, the crowd went ballistic when Queen appeared with all the pomp and ceremony befitting their name and their exalted status in the annuls of classic rock gods. Adam Lambert was magnificently camp as front man and uncannily like the late great Mercury. His soaring vocals were quite surreal and he had many moments, including a seamless duet with the real Freddie, appearing on the screens surrounding the stage. The original superstars, however, stole the show. Taylor's vocal accompaniments were solid and his drumming brilliant. Brian May engaged the crowd in Japanese and caressed his guitar with that soulful, signature bleat that only he can manage. During the set, it started to pour raining, yet it just seemed to add to the special atmosphere that was being created. A succession of clever, slightly lesser known song choices led into some classic anthems, the show closing with Radio Ga Ga, We will Rock You and We Are The Champions. What a night!!!

Somehow, we also managed to squeeze in an adventure out to Osaka Castle on Sunday, again negotiating the trains, this time a couple of subway lines. It was blazing hot and we were thankful that our daylight hours on Saturday had been cooled by cloud cover and the occasional drifiting shower. We sizzled in the summer sun, but the grounds were delightful and the fortifications quite mind-blowing (see photos above). A seamless return of subway, rapid train, airplane and limousine delivered us back to our own lounge room and the attentive ministrations of Virg'n Mary before 8 p.m. Sunday evening. Not only did we check something off a dream list, but we proved that we could do an international adventure in the confines of a regular weekend. Suffice to say, we had a ball: Cassy is still sporting her Sonic wristband today and the memories will linger.....

We arrived home from a blissful winter break in Oz, not to a burgled house with goods strewn wilfully and cats afraid and cowed (like last year), but to two mewling, needy furballs and a house mercifully free of any drama. Two sour notes were apparent: one a perennial, the stultifying heat and humidity and the other, an unwelcome and inconvenient surprise: the computer had decided to retire its hardrive for the final time!

While the computer is away indefinitely in the tech shop for recovery, I have been unable to manipulate all the photos from the break to post here on the blog. I had a few on the camera, some of which I've posted up top. The phone shots are more extensive, so I'll post them when I get a chance in the coming weeks.

It would be easy to assume from the shots above, that the holiday was filled with the consumption of fine wine to the virtual exclusion of all other activities! The camera was called into duty just for set shots, so that's why there is a preponderance of said scenes: that's my excuse anyway! We did however consume multiple bottles of Moet, a Bollinger, a Mumm and even our closely cloistered and nurtured bottle of 1988 Grange (what a syrupy nectar that was....the ultimate bacchanalian reward!)

A snapshot of a typical day in the holidays went something like this. We'd rise a bit before 8, sometimes leaving for our walk before breakfast and sometimes after. We strode out on the Bather's Way, along the oceanfront all the way to King Edward Park then return. A solid 6 km each time. Every second day I'd complete my 160 pushups to maintain my regimen established back here. We breakfasted accompanied my our Krups machine coffees. On occasions, if conditions were right, I'd go for a surf then Cass and I would try to do a "job", perhaps, posting a letter, or buying some minor product for the house, or our year back in Taipei. We'd eat out or at home, glance at a little local TV, savour a glass of Hunter Valley red, read a book, have a chat.

We had a lot of opportunity to visit with Cassy's parents at Shoal Bay or they'd join us down in Newcastle and go out to dinner. We had lunches out with friends and family. We had evenings with same. We watched the Knights' valiant efforts, visited the art gallery or walked the invigorated, quirky mall. We visited my mum. We had catch ups with all the other members of both our families.

The Harley, a grand old dame of advancing years now, purred its way over and around the scenic rim in far northern NSW and catapulted us into south east Queensland for good measure. With no set itinerary except to enjoy the ride, we mapped out little trips on byroads and curvy mountain passes each day, bustling through tiny, rural hamlets and spectacular, geographic wonders. Some days we ended up right where we'd started!

Our wonderful Kiwi friends, Ross and Ains, offered to come and visit us this year and we were hoping against hope that we could offer them a little bit of that perfect Newcastle winter weather we're so used to. The first time they experienced Newcastle was during the week of the Pasha Bulker disaster! Luckily we had stellar weather and we surfed, ate, went for long walks (and runs for those two Energiser bunnies!) and spent hours chatting and drinking both fine NZ reds that they brought with them or some Hunter Shiraz. We cracked the Grange with them one evening to accompany our super BBQ! It was fantastic to see them and catch up and hear about all their adventures both completed (a massive kitchen reno amongst other things!) and upcoming, including trekking in Nepal. We miss them in Taipei...

I'm unpracticed, rusty and just a little frantic this week in my writing, as we gear up for the kids to descend upon us tomorrow morning. We've had three days of meetings in preparation including a marathon session this morning lasting nearly four hours! So, I'll move on from here and plan some lessons for tomorrow. More photos to come from the holiday in the ensuing weeks...

Oh, and apologies to the pencil-case of top-shelf writers out there: after luxuriating in the opening chapters of Tim Winton's Eyrie, everyone else can fight it out for second spot. Sublime etchings of a master craftsman! Cass is reading The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton.

Guess what? We're going to Summer Sonic in Osaka, Japan this weekend. Straight from school to airport to hotel, quick sleep, then music festival frenzy: it's going to be a long, hot day and night of seething masses and a lineup of world famous groups. Check out the lineup here......Queen will rock us!!!