It's a dazzling display of tropical succulence at the top of the steps in the middle of summer. The track around the ridgeline is hallowed with drooping bamboo as lush, giant leaves float and cover all the spots along the path disguising the precipitous drops to the valley below. The temperature drops a few degrees as soon as the top step is reached and travel along the stone path begins. It's a merciful drop in temperature as we variously roasted and basted on our knee popping, sweat dropping trudge to the top in the middle of yet another diabolically hot Taipei weekend.
In stark contrast to our weekend hike of madness, we've luxuriated in the new air conditioners this past week. We've come to realise that our old equipment was partly broken, yet also partly ailing, as the living room component now throws out prodigious levels of frigid air in comparison to its predecessor. What's most startling is that we can raise the degrees time and time again and still be forced to go and source football jumpers and other coverings....the ridiculous to the more ridiculous.
We've very cunningly got the VPNs working with our lightning fast connection speeds to trick the internet into thinking we're sitting in Merewether somewhere to watch the Olympic Games from Rio! Channel 7 requested a postcode, and as long as I remembered to enter this, as well as the VPN before hitting the "live" button, we were able to gain access to a smorgasbord of sports for the duration, just finishing today. I've really missed watching the Olympic's coverage here in Taipei over all these years: looks like yet another international barrier has been broken down.
It's been an eye-opener for us in our first full week back at school. My seemingly mildly altered schedule has turned out, in practice, to be a bit of a shocker. I'm even unable to start or think about this blog on a Monday in my little break after lunch anymore, basically because the break doesn't now exist! When a meeting takes place after school as well, the blog posting gets pushed back to now, a Monday evening after school. I'm reluctant to change my Pavlovian habits as I suspect it might result in a cataclysmic abandonment of all things "blog": that would be a terrible shame after managing to maintain it for fourteen years, don't you think?! I'll tinker around the edges of my schedule and see if I can discover a few little windows of time to get the thing down each week.
Apart from chilling out, quite literally, in our newly air conditioned spaces, we've pretty much just worked, shopped and slept since we got back. Cass did manage to catch up with Kristin for a Friday evening meal, while I met up with Wal for a few beers on the same day. Wal will be off from school for six weeks from tomorrow for paternity leave, so it will be strange not having him around. He's quite determined to carve out some time on a Friday evening if possible and with footy finals starting in a week, I'll have plenty to keep me company in the coming weeks.
We were both quite chuffed with our hiking efforts yesterday and are both also chipping away at our holiday "puppy fat" as we fall back into our exercise and eating routines. Cass is busy cooking up her healthy vege curries again and also doing her morning weights' routine. I'm powering through my excessive regimen of pushups every other day and we both do our 30 minute round trip walking to and from work each day. The scales were taunting us with a few extra kilos after our trip back to Australia despite our determined exercise each day back there, but we're slowly whittling the excess away again. Apart from anything else, I have to squeeze into my tailored slimline suit in a few weeks time!
Photos: Cass hams it up in her "pod" class configuration, evil cakes for a birthday celebration from the French Patisserie and all others are from the steps and surrounds.