Cassy hosted her Book Club crew at our place on Friday night and I'm glad it's over! Yes, although I took no part in it whatsoever, it has been quite the extravaganza in planning, shopping, debating, agonizing, cleaning, decorating and eventually, hosting. In the interests of happy living, I've offered to help as much as possible and Cassy has actually allowed me to contribute, which I was pleasantly surprised about! Owing to the nature of the gathering, and despite the fact that local supermarkets now offer heaps more than they did a decade ago, specialty shopping was still a necessity.

Anyway, after all the effort expended, apparently the evening was a great success, with the cheeses, salads, bread, champagne and guacamole to start, before the main course of penne with olives and chicken. Cass made this recipe a while back and has tweaked it a little over time till it appears in its current form. I love it, and apparently it was a big success with "the girls" as well. Cassy's signature pavlova made its obligatory appearance: they refuse to let her cook anything different, they love it so much! This time, the lower humidity allowed it to cook and crisp to perfection, despite being squeezed into our rudimentary toaster oven for the bake: I'm always in awe of Cass being able to produce this in such circumstances!

The week and weekend consisted of a bit of research and a bit of booking for events in London in the next couple of weeks. We're staying in a pretty lux apartment in Kings Cross for the first week and then a super cool new cube hotel in the centre of town in the second week. We're going to see a Premier League soccer match between Queen's Park Rangers and Swansea on New Year's Day and see the Book of Mormon in the West End on Boxing Day (premium tickets at quite a cost!...YOLO). We've got a great range of stuff lined up with no set plan....just depends where the Tube takes us. The only time we're leaving London is to see Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor Castle on a bus trip one day early on.

We've got a little blase about these trips and left things a little late we've discovered! Luckily, we've still managed to get ourselves in to see what we wanted and with a little creative work this week, we should be all set to go super early on Saturday morning. The school camera I have been issued started to play up lately: couldn't have that could I? I requested a new one this morning, so they swapped me over a new one for the dodgy....gotta love that!

Taipei winter has finally arrived with a vengeance: Antarctic style puffy jackets have bloomed on the streets, our little blow heater is working overtime, the second quilt is on the bed, and the girls have disappeared into the inner sanctum of said quilt's folds in the blink of an eye. It's probably a good thing as it gets us slightly acclimatised to the European winter once again, albeit, very belatedly.

I'll have a spell from blog writing for a few weeks as we're away till January 5th: next blog probably the 11th. Happy Christmas and New Year! Photos: Book Club pav, amazing 3D printing by my 5th graders, running repairs for the car through the week, nice label on the oyster sauce and some of the tickets. Oh, and the follicly challenged brigade at the lower school Christmas party on Friday night!

Canadians can get a bad rap sometimes. We've become good friends with a number of Canadians here over the years, and, without exception, they're all great people. In many Australian minds, they tend to suffer from being a mild ingredient in that ethnic bowl of North America, a paprika to their louder southern cousin's tabasco. The maple syrup, bacon, Mounties, snow fields, the engine freezing weather and super friendly and delightful folk all going together to form a folksy, charming image that is justified in every case we know!

We've just been able to elevate all things Canadian yet another notch in our psyches, by experiencing the hereto unknown (to us at least) national dish of Poutine.  The description of the ingredients alone is enough to make good old fat-lovin', salt-devourin' folk like me get all gooey-eyed and salivating like a Pavlovian dog. The actual experience is even more beatific: the smell and sight was enough to get us started, but the taste, oh, the taste!

We'd traveled down on the MRT on the new Elephant Mountain (xiangshan) Line to the slick eastern hub of the new financial/restaurant/nightclub section of town. Xinyi Anhe station squeezed us out right on Anhe Road the most renowned nightclub stretch in the city, also dotted with exquisite restaurants and exclusive bars. Our destination was Whalen's, owned and run by Canadians. I was first drawn to the place after reading a description of their Killer Whale, a mountainous slab of various meats and fries and gravy meant to stymie even the most determined glutton. It had recently been conquered by a young (svelte) Taiwanese woman in the required time limit, but I became more fascinated with the rest of their menu.

The meals were exactly what we had imagined: Cassy's Mexican version had home style fries (wedges) with the ubiquitous gravy, jalapenos, salsa, crumbed chipotle chicken fingers and cheese curd. Mine had the original fries, gravy, cheese curd and lashings of turkey with even more gravy dripped over the top....heaven! after enjoying the meal immensely, along with the muted, old-wood, glass and mirrors, cosy interior, we reluctantly bid our farewells to make the trek back home. We happened across a trendy jazz bar called Relax, which had its resident cat immortalized on the roller door......but the cat itself sat proudly in front of it! So cool!

We stumbled through the garbage chaos on our way back home, but it's one we regularly join in: nothing like dodging flying blue garbage bags at twenty paces and drums full of kitchen scraps in the evening to get to know the neighbours a little better! Here's a good article. I also took a little video of the action as Cass wandered through (red jacket) to get some supplies from the 7/11.

Photos: my kiddies hard at work, big city sunset, poutine fever, Hello Kitty phone cases (that's for you Hel!), even the supermarket has its quirks!

A four day weekend was just the ticket for us, a reward for a hectic few weeks leading up to the break with meetings, compulsory social events and testing/grading leading up. We decided to stay put in Taipei for the duration as we couldn't really summon the requisite energy or enthusiasm to get overseas or even another venue on-island.

As it turns out, it was just as well as Cassy succumbed to another bout of bronchitis on Wednesday. Scurrying down to see the mercurial and questionably capable Dr. Tseng in her lesson break, she managed to get drugged up quickly and managed to stave off the worst of the illness so it didn't ruin her break. As work loomed this morning, she had a bit of a relapse, but I think it might be partly psychological!

It's always great to get out and about in the city during regular working days as we get precious few opportunities to enjoy it without the pressing weekend hordes. We had relaxed breakfasts and lunches, wandered the shops and open spaces, and generally reveled in the space and comfort of just a few thousand people out and about. Isn't it sweet to partake of decadent pastimes while everyone else is beavering away?

We had a lingering brunch at 1bite2go before taking some rock memorabilia (two signed albums), a Japanese banzuke and some Merewether panoramas to the picture framers. Ross took a great panoramic sweep on the new Bather's Way at Dickson Park on their trip to see us in June, and we'd ordered two enlargements to bring back over here. We'll hang them in our respective classrooms when we retrieve them next week. Signed albums by The Cars and Blondie look great and my treasured sumo schedule from 1986 is finally getting professionally framed. To continue the rock theme, we wandered the road up towards Hola and dropped in at a very cool guitar shop before making our way through Hola for the first time in many years, looking for some replacement sheets. "Taiwanese queen size or American queen size, sir?" Ahhh, we'd also forgotten this frustration! Looks like Cass might be bringing back some sheets in her suitcase in April.

Next day we took advantage of the dearth of humanity to sample the extremely popular Universal Noodle ramen shop in Tienmu. Normally discouraged by the snaking lines to enter, we waltzed in to be the only customers and enjoyed a very authentic ramen feast, so hot I was sweating from the top of my currently chrome-like dome! Back over to the cinema to see The Drop, a surprisingly good thriller/drama, James Gandolfini's last movie. The other crazy experience was having the gigantic theatre all to ourselves...we moved ourselves right into the middle and loved the viewing!

We traveled down to the main inner city on Saturday looking to buy a camera for our upcoming trip to London, but after examining the product (after a lot of research) we decided that the camera the school supplies me with has done the job pretty well for years now, so we'll just keep using that one! We had two cameras stolen in last year's break-in that we haven't replaced, but we'll wait a little longer I think. On the way out we stopped for ages to look at a dance-off competition practice: these kids were very cute!

Longtable in the Hsin Yi district was next stop and we had a tasty, lazy lunch. Cass particularly enjoyed the fresh roses, which were adorning each table. Onward to the 24 hour, eight story book store of Eslite (can you imagine: open all the time, gigantic, shops and coffee shops and every book known to man in every language....why can't we do this in Australia?). I wanted to buy a dial version old-style red telephone, but they'd sold out and only had other colours....disappointing! We wandered a little more, marveling at the new buildings that seem to morph into existence every time we visit. Buskers and entertainers were out in force: one impressively muscular young guy performed miracles on a steel "hula-hoop"....Cirque du Soleil on the street!

One of the new modern hotels in the district, Hotel W, soars to 31 stories and boasts an exclusive restaurant on one side and a coffee shop on the south with an unimpeded view of the imposing Taipei 101. We managed to sneak in just when a couple had vacated the prime position: a little table for two sequestered away from everyone else in a mad cube of glass sheets hanging right over the city! Despite my occasional shudders of vertiginous panic, it was incredibly spectacular to take in the city sights from such a lofty perch. We stayed there as long as possible, which worked out pretty well: as we ate the snacks provided, they kept filling them up!

Yesterday, Cassy spent a great slab of time knocking over a stack of her essays for grading and she feels much better with the weight off. She can cruise a little easier this week as a result. I took the opportunity to rip into the steps once again: it was a muggy day and I arrived back home with a couple of sandwiches dripping with sweat. My knees seem to be holding up to the pounding really well at the moment: seems like ever since I bought two kneecap support braces for the climbs, I haven't needed them.....is that some "law"?

Videos: the muscly spinner and the tiny dancers as well as a small section of the steps going up and also down!
Photos: ramen, cinema, downtown sights, mountain path.