A perpetual soaking rain continues to leak from above, as it has done for successive weeks, seemingly without end. The damp mood created doesn’t seem to lift despite the odd dazzling interlude when one typhoon heads west from the island towards China and another is yet to make landfall. These days have an intensity amplified by what has gone before: the sun almost outshines itself, the clouds waft daintily in the upper atmosphere and the breeze just eddies and flows to keep things warm rather than roasting. 

We’re steeling ourselves for yet another typhoon, at least the fourth of this short season. It is hovering with mild intensity off the south-eastern coast, yet producing annoying volumes of sheeting liquid even as I write this. We’re all in typhoon induced schlep at the moment and we are hoping that the city might have mercy upon us and call an official typhoon day for tomorrow: fingers crossed! The last thing we need is to battle the wind and rain tomorrow on our walking commute as an arrival wet and miserable to start the day is not a recipe for joyfulness!

We’ve been mired in yet more trouble on the apartment front, as our back verandah ceiling has been leaking prodigious amounts of water for about a week. Most concerning of all is the large cracking and fact that the water seems to be leaking through the very slab, rather than around the edges! Water drips incessantly on the washing machine, which we hope doesn’t short out, and the water has now decided to leak into the ceiling of the back room and down the back wall. The “girls” have endeavoured to ignore this aquatic intruder so far, but I’m sure they’re not very impressed! There is apparently going to be work done on the slab upstairs this afternoon, but only after two sets of neighbours trooped gleefully through our place to inspect the damage, one group coming twice while we were trying to eat our Sunday night meal!

We’ve been madly preparing for a truncated week and an amazing whirlwind tour back to Australia this Thursday night (oh well, at least Cassy has been!) My nephew will be married on Saturday on the Central Coast, so we’re planning to fly overnight Thursday, get to near the venue by Friday afternoon, attend the wedding on Saturday and get back to Sydney on Sunday. As it is NRL Grand Final weekend, we thought we’d give that a whirl as well, so we’ll get the hire car back to the airport early before training out to Olympic Park. It will be a late night and an all-day flight back on Monday……guess who’s going to be on cruise control back at work on Tuesday??!!

Our coming week will be hectic, waterlogged in all respects and exciting….I’m procrastinating even now as I write this, but the rain is only warming up, beating an intense beat, drumming heartily away at my window, tempting me with a ferociousness that needs to last till tomorrow….will it last? Please……?!

Photos: water damage in the apartment, a glittering respite from the weather featuring the soaring new tower block in Tienmu, and my cactus plant continues to revel in the rain as it produces weird flower after weird pod in an endless production line.

P.S. The Taipei City Government, in their infinite wisdom, called a typhoon day for tomorrow at approximately 8.15 p.m. this evening. Hail the overlords!

We were sodden and bedraggled after an abortive attempt to go the pictures on the weekend! After analyzing numerous different websites dealing with our double typhoon assault this week, you'd think we'd be able to make a better call on the timing of our outing! As it turned out, we made the absolutely worst call, ever!

We were getting a little stir crazy after successive days of dribbling rain, tossing winds and oppressive humidity so were determined to start the weekend off with an outing. We split up and went our separate ways on Friday night under the threat of the second typhoon's imminent landfall some time later in the night, possibly about midnight. Cass had her second bookclub meeting in short time owing to a delayed date from the last and I was succumbing to football finals fever once again after meeting up quite late with Wal to have a few beers before we went further afield.

Cass armed herself with an umbrella, sensible shoes, and ditched her fancy bag for the evening as we anticipated quite the onslaught. It never really eventuated, however, and despite some squalls and huffing and puffing, the big bad giant didn't really arrive until the next day. She had a great night with the "girls" and they had a feast of both food and drink as well as literary opinion. I, on the other hand, managed to forget my umbrella twice, but circled back to re-claim it as the rain threatened. We enjoyed a cameo from Tim, our neighbour, for a spot down at Uli's and we caught up with his latest and greatest.

On Saturday, determined that the typhoon (which had been squatting on the northern tip of the island overnight) had finally decamped, we found a movie worth watching and prepared ourselves to go over to the other side of Tienmu via scooter. Cass, in hindsight quite sensibly, suggested a cab, but I seemed sure that the wind and rain had moved on. By the time we'd got to the basement, the rain had started to tip down again, yet we decided to make the relatively short trip anyway. We got about 3/4 of the way there: the rain was beating down, we were getting saturated and the bike was being tossed like a twig in the heavy bursts of ferocious wind. We decided to turn back as we were only going to be very uncomfortable sitting in our soggy clothes for two hours anyway. See the aftermath of the adventure up top, or here later on!

After we dried off, we decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and postponed any further adventures until things had really settled down. We spent a pleasant evening in listening to the elements tearing and worrying, while we sat snugly dry inside. On Sunday, conditions were only slightly improved and we again tracked the typhoon hoping for a postponement of Cassy's camp for just one day. Unfortunately, the text came through around midday confirming that all camps would go ahead as planned on Monday morning....bad luck!

Cassy variously moped and moaned on Sunday evening and again on Monday morning. It really is her most dreaded time of year. The conditions at the camp are very rudimentary: the cabins rank with mold and ramshackle at best, the non-stop activities and feeding relentless and enervating, and the whole "on-duty" bit for 24/7 combined with associated privations quite disheartening. Anyway, she didn't succumb to the depressing reality for long, but instead expounded that, "It will all be over soon...."! I'll be looking forward to welcoming her back on Friday afternoon!

Photos: the Chinese version of "Punch and Judy" in our local park, Cass with pretty flowers and not in the best mood after our drenching!

Australian football finals flung themselves into action this weekend and it was a flamboyant and furious start to an exciting fan-fuelled fever! Old mate Shaun decided to host the big Friday night thriller between Hawthorn and Geelong at his place, and I managed to catch the NRL blockbuster on delay later on. He had a house full or raucous supporters and we thoroughly enjoyed our time before, during and after the big event. He was a great host, even supplying pizzas from Tienmu's latest parlour, Pizza Denise(!), to keep the ravenous hordes calm and fed.

Cass and I decided to head over to the cinema precinct on Saturday, after a dearth of interesting films has seen us absent for some time. "Sully" was quite riveting, a testimony to the talented directorship of Clint Eastwood and the always competent Tom Hanks in the lead role. When you know the outcome from an incident that only took a few minutes to transpire, it's a neat trick to keep people engaged for a feature length movie! Afterwards, we scootered through the back alleys to Cassy's seamstress, commonly known as "Lady", but the two evil "step-sisters" were there instead! The lady's two helpers are not very helpful at all and tend to laugh at Cassy right to her face! I witnessed the latest episode as I sat on the scooter looking through the window: maybe everyone in Taiwan is not so nice after all! We're going to head back to have another crack on Monday afternoon.

Afterwards, we stopped at one of the curious stores that seem to sell every manner of goods available. It's kind of like a fully stocked hardware shop with various other quirky trinkets. The shelves are over-flowing with goods and it's quite a trick to find the various sections you need. We staggered out with bags full of dish-washing detergent, over-boots, scrubbing brushes and drink bottles just to name a few. Next stop was Wendel's for the weekly bread shopping, then over for a mid afternoon meal at Din Tai Feng where we enjoyed all our favourite delicacies.

When we headed out from the basement carpark we were greeted by a tropical downpour with sheets of water cascading down the driveways, flooding the drains, and thundering a beat that seemed like it would never end. We promptly U-turned and headed back down to safety and had a cup of coffee at a little cafe inside! We checked the weather upstairs and it looked like clearing, but as soon as we scootered up again, it was again teeming down. We split up, and Cass had her faith restored in the Taiwanese when two ladies sheltered her across the road with their umbrellas and I shed my shoes to brave the ride home. We met up back at home both in various states of saturation, but we'd had a real adventure!

We breakfasted late on Sunday before deciding to challenge the 1,500 steps of Tienmu Gudao in the searing heat of the midday sun...what were we thinking?! Armed with our chilled bottles of water for our reward at the end of the descent of the climb we headed up the mountain. By the time we were finished the first "flight" we were already sodden with perspiration. As we edged ever higher the euphoria of our achievement started to kick in and we spent a little time on the mountain path up top congratulating ourselves! Heading back down is quite blissful as we shimmy down the stairs, listen to the cicadas and birds, drink in the bountiful vistas over the city and look forward to our reward. The cooling draughts at the bottom are the sweetest elixirs of all! A fresh baguette on the way home, then I settled in to watch a footy final, but no sooner did I settle in, than Marcus called and said he was in the area, while taking Logan for his daily constitutional.

We arranged to meet at a local coffee shop that is in Ker Qiang Road and we've been meaning to try for a little while, called King Andre. Don't ask me, I have no idea where they get these names from!
We had a good old chat and little Logan was very cute and well behaved. He's got a little more used to me as I've been exposed to him a bit more lately and I nursed him for a while and played with him without any incident! The two and a half week old Eli is doing much better now and they're trying to get him into a routine of feeding and sleeping. The by product of this pleasant and unexpected afternoon get-together was the coffee: this shop really knows how to brew a great cup, so we'll be back!

Photos: Street art, Din Tai Feng dumplings et al, a black dragonfly(yes, black!), shots from the smoldering, sun-seared stairs, and a blurry Logan and Marcus.

A certain dichotomy of service exists in Taiwan, a strangeness that's initially difficult to identify, but when it happens again and again, it becomes more discernible. The country is world famous for its tech capabilities and innovation in high tech gadgetry and leadership in all manner of futuristic goods and services. Its high speed rail, while not the world's first or fastest , was built in record time and is blindingly efficient, like all the metro systems running in the major cities. All public areas and public facilities innovate and experiment, often leading to copycat catch ups in other areas of the world, including the Youbike system and chipped Easycards to pay for virtually everything in the city.

Sometimes, however, age-old antiquated practices rear their ugly heads and provide a headache, an example being the perennial problem of changing my phone payment account each year! The phone store for Taiwan Daa Gu Da is slick and ultra modern, and the handsets and plans sold concomitantly are cutting edge. The problem lies in the penchant for paper records, necessitating an upgrade of my credit card details each and every year in an incredibly laborious shuffle of papers and documents. I have to bring the text they send me this time each year, my Alien Resident Card, my passport, my driver's license and the new credit card. They then photocopy everything in triplicate, showering me with copies I neither want nor need. Despite having a phone plan for 14 years, every time they spell my name incorrectly, necessitating a further lengthy and frustrating search for this fellow who has the exactly the same name and birth date as me, but whose first and middle names are reversed. Over an hour later, I stagger away....Arrrgghh!

It's very rare that we get frustrated here, despite our continuing, occasional language barriers, because everyone is just so delightful and accommodating. Despite our frustrations, it's impossible to stay grumpy for very long. The other classic example is the bank. The foreign exchange and transaction floor is like going in a time machine back to 1950. Conservatively dressed armies of bank workers whisper and shuffle in a library-like solitude, each sitting at a desk cluttered with stamps and ink-pads and surrounded by mini-mountains of forms and papers piled high in every available nook and cranny between desks. It's like an absent minded professor's chaotic clutter! Somehow however, everything gets done with great efficiency and if they have to resort to the computer for anything, the tellers seem very disappointed that they can't utilize their abacuses and paper mountains!

The phone company was my dreaded stop on Saturday, but we sauntered over to SOGO beforehand to have a delicious Thai feast and then shopped for various accessories for our trip back home early next month. I managed to buy a tie straight from Saville Row at ridiculous expense along with a Japanese designer's pocket square. A new pair of socks from Uniqlo and I'm ready for action. Cass didn't spot anything in our travels so I was the one hauling purchases out of the store, despite a 50% off shoe sale on the bottom floor that was well examined, but ultimately dismissed by said shopper.

Cass had her Book Club meeting on Friday at Kristin's place. They ate Vietnamese food to match their latest book, with the Pho flowing along with the wine. Some of the crew were back after forcing a postponement a week before because of various important events. This means they'll be meeting again in just 2 weeks time to catch up on their monthly get-togethers. No pictures, because someone took the camera but forgot about it!

We've got an unenviable week coming up. I'm slated for duty at a parent reception, a fairly tedious and forced social affair for school, where we're tasked with mingling with parents over a few drinks and supper of hors d'oeuvre, ostensibly to spruik the various wonderful programs that we're all teaching. For born and bred Australians, this is a difficult task: Our more gregarious and, dare I say, less humble American colleagues seem to find the role as easy as sliding on a silk glove! Cassy has an onerous duty as well. Her annual "Back to School" night is on Thursday night, and she, as a team leader, has quite a significant role in presenting various parts of the evening's program. We'll both be pleased when this Friday rolls around!

The pocket park behind the tennis courts opposite our apartment is full of typical Taipei exercise equipment of dubious fitness and strength value. While there is a quite useful horizontal bar set-up, even the higher bar necessitates some strange contortions so that parts of the body don't drag along the ground. Others seem to use body weight to push another part of the apparatus up in the air, then release it down again and the net exercise trade-off is approximately zero. Still, the oldies seem to like it and think they are doing something worthwhile!

Photos:just some of the exercise machines in our park, a frieze from the temple across the river, and flourishing bushes that are defying the fact that the first day of autumn has already come and gone. I'm reading Lionel Shriver's dystopian "The Mandibles" which is quite riveting, while Cass wraps up her reading of  Viet Than Nyuyen's, "The Sympathizer", which has been quite a bit longer than she originally thought (the curse of the Kindle)!

Oh, and....Looks like the secret's out regarding Taiwan. It's just been judged the number one country for ex-pats in the world!