You can tell how happy Cassy is at the moment from some of the photos above. As we slowly wind down the year here, high school kids graduating and middle and lower school kids and teachers fizzling out on the run down the home stretch, the finishing post can't come quickly enough. This will be my last blog post till mid August when we return after our "summer" break in Australia. All the fun of shutting down our lives here for a couple of months starts now!

Cassy has compiled a great list of things that need to be done before we fly out next Sunday. Mostly mundane, but all necessary, many of them revolve around the "girls", their supplies and their carers. We also have to do some rent payments, credit card reminders and various other temporary shutdowns or postponements. We've managed to cross a few things off the list already, but have a pretty full week of doing the rest of them.

A very annoying and untimely distraction has been the breakdown of our air-conditioner in the bedroom. Just when the temperatures have soared into the high 30s, the unit in the bedroom has decided to leak water inside at an alarming rate. We've had it fixed twice beforehand and had been previously advised that it was on its last legs, but it has come at a very inopportune point! Our solution has been to keep the main unit going in the loungeroom, open our door but close all the others and hope a little cooler air filters through to us. If we keep the fan going as well, it seems to be working OK, so we'll try that for a while, at least for this week.

We zipped over to the deliciously tempting burger haunt in Shilin, Burger Ray, on Saturday after our shopping run. We've reached our annual point of no return I think: exhausted after a week's work, we've found it hard to rally to do anything much at all on the weekend in these last few weeks! It was superb and tasty and fresh and they've obviously realized the hypnotic beats played at ear-splitting volume were all a bit too much: the thwump-thwump staccato is still there, but you can actually now have a conversation as well! Our grocery shopping trip was mercifully short and resulted in very light and relatively empty bags as the shopping and food commissioner runs down supplies for our imminent departure.

Cass had her final Book Club meeting of the year at one of their preferred restaurants, Sonnentor, on Thursday evening. As usual, she got all sorts of gossip and caught up on the latest and greatest in this strange little community of which we're a part. The girls also selected all their books for next year, many of which have already been sourced and loaded onto Kindles and iPads. She also had her last extra duty of the year, helping out at the middle school BBQ which preceded the dance on Friday night. I spent Friday evening with a succession of likely fellows at various establishments around town for the purposes of drinking beer and watching various codes of football: as usual, tall tales and mostly true were the order of the day!

The air has been heavy and moist, afternoon thunderstorms have dumped prodigious amounts of water in rapid bursts of fury and the sun has variously roasted and cooked. The flora and fauna in the parks and beside the lanes and roads have flourished in these conditions and we've had multiple sightings of "The Moop", (even to the extent of large, roughly fashioned nests high up in the canopy of park-side treetops) as well as the very rarely spotted Taiwanese blue tailed magpie, which has brought a little nesting family to camp in our park, even dive-bombing Cassy "Aussie magpie style" the other day!

Freakishly and frighteningly, I'm supposed to receive an award at the recognition service on Friday afternoon for long service to the school: the scary aspect is that it is for 15 years service. I'm just going to let that fact sit and try not to analyze that too much, except to say that we definitely have exceeded our original two year plan! We're both looking forward to our trip back home, but as usual, we'll also miss our Taipei Life...see you soon!

Photos: blue magpie, flora, graduation, cool car, happy Cassy. I'm reading the third in the Dennis Lehane Coughlin trilogy, World Gone By and Cass continues with her Ferrante. Video is of the incomparable Chiesa di San Maurizio al Monestero Maggiore in Milan which was just a stroll from Da Vinci's The Last Supper...what a day that was!

Taipei 101's baby brother is attached at the hip to his big sister, yet rises just a measly 5 storeys compared to the lofty heights of 101 floors. You can see the little attachment in the photos of the colossus above: it's the annoying little add-on in the mid to lower left of the day and night shots! Despite it's tiny comparative size it pulls immense financial weight and houses branches of most of the ubiquitous luxury brands to be found anywhere in the world.

This rarefied atmosphere is one which we occasionally pass, sniff the breeze, then vacate quickly as if the lack of oxygen might swallow us into a vortex. If we do stop and sticky-beak, it's always to wonder at the type of person who shops in these glittering palaces. Their liveried and impossibly beautiful attendants, looking so snooty and entitled, wander the deep pile carpeted stores re-arranging the already perfect, flicking imaginary specks of dust with gloved hands. The impressively muscled "guards" squeezed into designer suits, possibly wondering what all their iron pumping had been for, as they courteously open and close whispering glass panes for the curious to come in and gaze in awe.

Well, I'm horrified to report that we've now experienced all the fawning, posturing and preening which we'd previously wondered about, as Cass bit the bullet and acted on her months of research with her very first purchase of a top designer level handbag. Cass had decided to pool various funds from Christmas and birthday this time into something other than jewellery, which was my first surprise! She vacillated about her purchase, not sure she was doing the right thing, although she did do mountains of electronic research along with real, hands on looking and touching of various alternatives. She settled on this bag when she spied it with Valerie on their visit here in April and has only this weekend set her plan in motion!

We began our quest with a 40 minute subway ride down to the glitzy eastern reaches of the city. There are two Dior shops of note in Taipei, but the sparkling palace is located at 101. In contrarian fashion, we decided to predicate this grand purchase on a meal of opposite worth in the food court on the B1 level of the building! Despite the paucity of seating available in the early evening crush, we went ahead and ordered our Japanese curry set (for me) and Indian vegetarian (for Cass) before meeting back to search for a seat. We finally spied a tight spot and oddly sat opposite another couple at a very narrow table: when you lent over your meal we were uncomfortably close! To continue the metaphor, we then traveled from the bowels of the building, up sets of escalators, the designer goods becoming more luxurious as the floors went higher till finally, we were wafted onto the marble forecourt of the top floor and the dazzling wall of light that was Dior, beckoned.

As it happened, our worst fears were not realized and the delightful girl who served us was very understanding as Cass looked at a number of possibilities before deciding on her favourite. The girl was, however, adorned with pristine white gloves! That part of the stereotype aside, she helped us through the process of a drawn out purchase, packing and explanation of the tax rules as well as letting us spend some time swanning around the store as she "attended to business". I'm sure the relaxed pace is all part of the experience! Taking the obligatory commemorative photos with our attendant and then outside, we made our way back through the multilayered marble maze to slip quietly on to the MRT and home. Cass was so so consumed by "bag fever" that she had trouble sleeping on Saturday night! She now has to keep it packaged till presenting at the airport for a tax inspection till she can finally unsheathe it in all its glory. She's looking forward to it!

Photos: all of "bag fever"! Inside the Duomo in Milan up top for now or here later

 

The middle school production was the all consuming theme of our weekend, Cassy in the thick of it as I merely played a supporting role on the periphery. It was a runaway train, a rollicking trip of good vibes and a tour de force, if critics are to be believed. Cassy's team of girls did a magnificent job under her direction as you can see not only from the "Big Four" characters above, but from the cast of thousands who needed three costume and makeup changes through the course of the show. Despite the cast swelling beyond any before witnessed limits, Cass had an even smaller team than usual, so the 11 girls did a fantastic job in the production line of Munchkins and Jitterbugs along with the intricate hour long jobs on the Lion, Tinman and Scarecrow.

"Dorothy" was the star of the show and her performance was mature and talented. As it happens, the girl who played Dorothy is the oldest daughter of Cassy's great friend, Kristin! This young girl has done incredibly well after transferring from local school just two years ago at the start of Grade 5. Imagine that....a young Aussie girl, fluent in Mandarin and transferring to an English speaking school before becoming the lead in a middle school production while still in Grade 6? I'm thinking there are great deeds ahead for this kid!

Cass was desperate for distractions during her minor breaks from the action this week yet  a series of unexpected and unwelcome distractions rocked us during the week. A series of earthquakes of quite significant proportions rocked the east coast not 40 kilometres from where we are, a little closer than the usual epicentres. The school buildings, despite their monolithic bulk, were jolted and rocked and quite the queasy feeling ensued. I wrote a poem about this last time and felt like writing another one!
With Richter readings in the mid to late 5s, we'd be quite happy without them. On Friday evening, as we snacked on paninis down at Letitia before the performance, there was yet another 5+ shudder...it's all very unsettling!

We distracted ourselves with a delicious Thai lunch/dinner on the weekend, sneaking down to SOGO in the afternoon before the dinner rush began and before Cass was on duty in the late afternoon to get ready for the big Saturday night show. We couldn't tear ourselves away from our usual signature dishes: they really are terrific and authentic. If you close your eyes and imagine yourself beachside in Chon Buri or Hua Hin, scrunching sand between your toes and listening to gentle waves crashing on the shoreline, it really is a beautiful experience!

We celebrated the last show, the Sunday matinee, with a similar early dinner, this time at the peerless Din Tai Feng. Extending the them of the weekend, we resorted to the familiar chicken Xiao long bao for me and Cassy's mushroom dumplings along with shrimp and egg fried rice, stir fried cabbage and pickled cucumber....oh, heavenly!

Mr. Lee, our landlord who live downstairs, had lent his car to be part of a wedding party so there was a little commotion in our laneway at one point over the weekend. The cute insignia was still on the car sometime later, so Cass posed with it!

I finished "Go Set a Watchman" and despite it needing a good edit (which can happen when the author dies on you!), I hail it a worthy companion piece to "...Mockingbird" despite the fact it will always live in its elder, more sophisticated sister's shadow. I also sat through every one of the 62 unanswered points inflicted on the poor, outclassed Knights on the weekend....how devastating for those young boys! Photos: some production shots, the makeup team in action, cute cars, earthquakes and the first signs of real Spring....baby birds hatching under shop awnings on our walk to school!
Video: Christmas time in a very crowded Duomo Piazza in Milan up top, or here later.

With a cast of thousands (well, at least 190!), a prima donna of precious dancers and a foppishness of fledging actors, the annual middle school performance enters its performance week. The director of makeup, however, has fallen foul of some sickening bug and she is suffering from sinusitis badly which has also developed into a very sore throat today at work. We have to get her diagnosed and medicated to make sure she can cope with a super busy week!

Poor Cass has been laid low all weekend as she's tried to rest and recover in order to face the rigours of the week ahead. We've hardly done a thing in hope that the rest would work. We did the weekly shopping together and then I scootered hither and yon to source various needed supplies while Cass tried to relax at home. It appears all our efforts may have been in vain as her condition has worsened throughout the start of the work week and her first duty for a full dress rehearsal today along with trying to teach all her regular classes.

On Sunday, I managed to drag myself up the stairs yet again as I felt a little stir crazy. The temperatures here have soared in the last week or so and I made the trek in 35 degree heat. Mercifully, the canopy of the forest overhangs at many points and the foliage grows lush and tall, ensuring a cool shade in many spots on the way ever upward. The old water pipe has been tapped at regular intervals and the stream spurts into various rivulets that gurgle and splash along the side of the path, occasionally spouting over mini-cliffs in tiny waterfalls and pooling in shady oases in others. A frog even plopped on my shoe as he crossed the path in search of the reviving waters.It all makes for a rather pleasant experience despite the scorching temperatures! I was, however, in great need of my cooling draught at the bottom, and replaced more lost liquid when I got home as well.

During the latter part of the week I scurried away from school when one of my classes was at a field trip to take the car for its bi-annual inspection. After a huge recent overhaul, I was very confident it would pass with flying colours (it did, I'm pleased to report!). The system was as slick as ever and as I awaited the car to go through its various "tests of strength", I pondered a sign and accompanying bookshelf in the waiting area (see first photo above). All the books were in Mandarin, but what a great idea! It reminded me of a book exchange we'd spotted on various street corners in Vienna at Christmas: glass cubes where one could either deposit or retrieve books, all for free! I can't think of a more immediate and brilliant venture which could be set up for next to no dollars. Very obvious segue will now occur....!

I've started reading the "sequel" to "To Kill a Mockingbird", namely "Go Set a Watchman" by Harper Lee. Of course, there is much mystery surrounding this book, not the least of which concerns its authorship: how could she have kept this manuscript a secret and unpublished for all these years? Well, in my humble opinion, and after just finishing a re-reading of Mockingbird, it is either the genuine article by the original author or a very, very clever fake. The first half of the book contains many of Jean Louise's (Scout's) reminiscences about her childhood....it's so lovely to revisit Maycomb County and those rambunctious kiddies! I'll be sure to let you know my opinion about the second half of the book....it seems to be starting in a far more controversial pattern!

Wish my poor girl luck for the week....she'll need it! Photos: The car getting its six monthly inspection over the pits, flower installations in the front lobby at school, shots from the stairs and a gigantic pair of ruby slippers awaiting the arrival of Dorothy and the rest of the cast from "The Wizard of Oz". I'm reading Lee's "Go Set a Watchman" and Cassy is reading Ella Ferrante's "My Brilliant Friend". A video from Vienna is up top for a while, or here later.

 

This past week, I was reminded again of two opposite sides of the coin for students studying under our auspices at the school here in Taipei. The first side, as I mentioned recently, is the incredible array of opportunities that abounds for them to select from and be inspired by. The second, on the flip side, is the immense amount of work they do, and pressure which they sometimes put themselves under, in order to achieve academically.

I accompanied my kids to a puppet master's show of techniques near the end of the week and his skills were superb. He told the kids it takes decades of daily practice to become so skilled. They're often exposed to wonders like this, and I think they so soon realize that these great skills, no matter in what sphere, don't come automatically. Cass, in turn, had a get-together with her friend Kristin during the week and she was flabbergasted at the amount of dedication displayed by Kristin's daughters: full days at school then rosters choc-a-bloc full of sports and artistic endeavours till 8 each night, virtually every night!

This morning I gave the coterie of Grade 5 students whom I teach the chance to choose their work assignment for the morning. I gave them two serious options, but one was far less arduous and tedious. Most of them elected to undertake the harder, more mundane task! We have some standardized testing coming up and they elected to do more practice for a timed essay write, despite doing numerous examples of same in the past couple of weeks. Cassy's kids are similarly preparing and rarely a grumble passes their lips....remarkable!

We had a pleasant evening away from all that pressure (!) when we dined early on Saturday evening at the superb, "The Spice Shop". Its boring moniker belies the varied and tasty offerings that they continue to serve to an eager public many years after their initial establishment. They are one of the great survivors in this city's cut-throat restaurant market, as many fall prey to fickle customers and fads along with fierce competition and concomitant profit margin slashing. We've missed their opening time the past few times we tried, so we were glad to get our fix.

Despite the fact that Cass felt a little less than 100%, she decided to join me on my semi-regular journey up the Tienmu Gudao Steps. I've talked many times about this local challenge, but will comment on a few of the aspects that I've neglected in previous posts. There are a few subtle signs up the lower reaches of the steps warning trekkers to be quiet and be mindful of residents. Some of these houses are a good 300 metres up this narrow set of uneven, granite stairs: with absolutely no other access! The people must be fit as fiddles as they haul groceries, gas and water bottles and themselves and everything else up here at regular intervals. I'll bet they don't often forget to buy the milk on the way home!

Another noteworthy aspect of the steps is the menagerie of wildlife that seems cloistered around the steps and its surrounding pocket of lush forest. After a spitting, intermittent rainfall through the morning, the crowd was whittled down to just a few when we set off, and as we climbed higher we found ourselves disturbing vast flutters of butterflies and other insects as we lumbered by. Taiwan is known as having the largest number of species of butterflies in the world (even though many are under threat) and it's easy to believe at times like this: there were kaleidoscopic waves of colour flitting and dancing all around us as we made our way ever upwards. The Taiwan Macaques were absent today, but we heard large trilling birds in the forest and saw centipedes marching across the steps. We even encountered a playful pair of kittens along the little flat section after the first big climb!

Poor Cassy has succumbed to a bout of sinusitis today but made it to school in her usual stoic fashion: I'd be down for the count! Photos: puppet master, wildlife on the steps, the "Moop" and a thoroughly and disgustingly domesticated animal! There is a video of the puppet master up top, or later, right here.