The school here quite generously gifts us a couple of days to meet with parents and kids to discuss progress...long gone are the days of teaching all day then having to front up to parents all night in a crowded hall. We have 20 minutes scheduled with each family and a portfolio of their work, whereupon we discuss, assess and point out next steps they need to take: all very civilized! We were commenting the other day how relaxed we are going in to these conferences in recent times: but then again, after 30 years in the game, we should be! So, all of Thursday and Friday was taken up with these interviews for me and Cassy has her conferences next Thursday and Friday. She has a different experience, not quite as civilized, where she'll meet with parents for 10 minutes or so and all the teachers are set up in one of the gymnasiums: she has 85 sets of parents with kids!
We went and saw the rather curious "The Walk" on Saturday over at Shinkong Mitsukoshi. It was quite remarkable for the CGI employed and the tension was ramped up in the latter part, but it came across as quite hokey with a dreadful script: it was almost like one of those sanitized kid's movies, yet this wasn't the audience it was aimed at. Anyway, as I said, curious.
Back home early in the afternoon, we thought we might be able to sneak into the ever popular Din Tai Feng without the usual 20-30 minute wait. Sure enough, after a pleasant stroll through the forecourt, we found the basement only humming rather than roaring, and the line non-existent: perfect! It was a taste sensation as usual and we again marveled at the exquisitely crafted dumplings and perfectly flavoured accompaniments. Flavour Field bread for the morrow and a trip to Wendel's negated, we deviated to check out a new Thai restaurant's menu before wandering home to enjoy a quiet evening.
The "1,000" steps are just a nice round number for a name, but I actually made a semi-accurate count for real on Sunday morning. There are approximately 1485 steps in the steps proper and a further 20 or so before you arrive at the mountain trail round the ridgeline, so I'm going to assume about 1,500 each way. So for a total of 3,000 steps and a travel time of under 30 minutes, that's about 100 steps a minute....not a bad pace! I usually take a breather by walking at a crisp clip round the mountain trail for 5-10 minutes to get my breath back after the long haul up the mountain, but even so, that's not too bad. No monkeys today, but I heard some rummaging by reasonably large animals in the bamboo stand about halfway down, as well as spotting Taiwan's answer to the Aussie Blue Tongue Lizard: the blue tail lizard!
On the way home, I got a salad for Cass and roast beef roll for me from Lutetia, a French coffee shop/cafe in the neighbourhood. Cedric, the owner, either has awesome skills or is employing some great cooks: everything from there is exquisite, including the quiche which we're having tomorrow night. Cass has fun speaking French with his cute little son at times on the way home from work!
We went to Carrefour to continue the French theme and stocked up on the shopping for the week. Cass wanted to cook some spaghetti Bolognese and needed some mince: this is far too exotic to be found in our local supermarket, so we decided we'd do the whole shop elsewhere. We found some tomato puree from Italy in tetra paks so that was another minor thrill!
Photos: Wal's prolific output saw all these guys get their first cook in the school's electric kiln: now back for glazing before another hotter bake. My twins at conference time...I have no hope telling them apart! Funky Taiwan bubble milk tea as well as scenes from the steps: including a giant mushroom growing from a tree and the electric blue lizard tail! Finally, a small Vegemite at Carrefour, a rare sight, but an expensive one...about $15 Australian!