It's not often that a dinkum Aussie movie arrives on the wide screens of Taiwan's cinema houses, which have their own peculiar prediliction for fast action, small dialogue extravaganzas that eliminate the subtitle dilemma of watching foreign language films. With this rare gem on offer for a limited time, we made sure we made the trip to the movies this weekend to see The Water Diviner, directed by and starring the execrable Russel Crowe. Although it wasn't our favourite genre and of questionable quality, it was nice to see a little Australian landscape, hear the sounds and watch some clever little cameos from some stars of the Australian small screen, along with the cruder, broader brushstrokes painted by Crowe in this shambling tale.
A movie that certainly will appeal to the Taiwanese demographic and one that I've eagerly awaited for years, is the much hyped and long anticipated 4th installment in the Mad Max franchise. The last being 30 years ago, by necessity, the actors have all changed, but I'm looking forward to the mercurial George Miller directing his own special way in another adventure of Max and friends. Interestingly, I note that The Toecutter from the very first film is making a re-appearance as the villain in this piece, albeit as another character. I get the vibe that Cassy is less excited about this whole Mad Max mania, but I'm sure she'll do me the favour of accompanying me next week to a viewing of Fury Road!
We lunched in the food court of the Shingong Mitsukoshi building at the Cafe India outlet, tearing ourselves away from the delights of Din Tai Feng for a weekend. It was very tasty and great value, so we'll bear that in mind for a quick meal before or after the movies in the future.
There's not much to be said about the Knight's awful performance on Sunday morning our time, so after we endured about 7/8 of the game and a hideous mauling by the cellar dwellers Manly, we could bear no more. After ringing Mum and having a very pleasant chat for Mother's Day I decided to make a run up to the steps. It was a perfect day for relaxing in the spring weather, but not so for charging up 1300 steps in the blaze of the early afternoon. I was a lather by the time I reached the top and took a bit of cooling down time along the top ridgeline track. There were suspicious rustlings and primal screams from the forest as the Formosan Macaque troop foraged and played, but they decided not to invade the track and cause unnecessary panic for the human population atop the mountain: maybe they were just celebrating Mother's Day too!
Later in the day, we decided to check out a brand new burger joint just a few minutes away by scooter. Embracing some definite industrial chic as well as some other quirky little elements, with 70s record albums on the shelf and over-sized photos of cultural icons framing a fake fireplace with cords of wood either side (bizarre in the Taipei summer!), the food ended up being very, very good at "Burger and Co." Cass had a lentil and mushroom patty and I had a regular one and I had the cheesy fries while she settled for the regular. We had a nice relaxing time soaking in the vibe on a lazy afternoon. Not content to rest on that already weighty calorie count, we scootered across to Deh Shing East Road to a new cheesecake shop. Yes, they just sell cheesecakes and unlike the eponymous chain store back home, it is a tiny business with the ovens virtually in the shopfront itself. We selected a couple of pieces from the display as stacks of cakes piping hot from the oven rallied beside us on the shopfloor. Suffice to say that they tasted as good as they looked!
Cass is gearing up for one of the busiest weeks of her year as the middle school production looms large. Today is a typhoon make-up day here at school and as the typhoons earlier in the year didn't shut down the school, we're having a PD day here without kids today. (Ironically another typhoon is marching slowly up the island right now, and is due to lash its tail into us this evening.) As we're kid free, they have scheduled an all-day dress rehearsal, so Cass had to have all the make-up in place for today. Early reports are that things are going well, but I'll bore you with a full report next week!
Photos: Fury Road in English and Chinese, shots from the steps, Burger and Co and Cheese Mate. I also embedded a screen shot of an internet speed test I did today: I don't think Australia will ever reach these speeds and still 26% of Taiwan has faster connections than this!
P.S. Our chronically lazy felines have fallen back to type: no more hissing at one another, but still managing to sleep most of the day and all of the night!