It's a decadent treat to bask in the glow of the Ipad as the first cricket test of the summer unfolds. It's an even more luxurious comfort not to have to worry about work, deadlines or interruptions: it's that time when we give thanks every year to our American overlords!

The annual Thanksgiving holiday started in fine fashion on Wednesday afternoon when the Food Services crew here at school somehow feeds the masses a full meal of turkey and gravy and all the trimmings without a hitch or a glitch. Not only do the hundreds of faculty and staff enjoy the feast: their immediate families are also invited so there are throngs of people of all descriptions, including a runaway of quicksilver toddlers and youngsters!

" The Detentions", the creatively monikered faculty band, was creating a wall of sound and the aforementioned runaway was causing parents to scurry and retrieve all over the place. Despite the general chaos, I had a few beers and a chat to an odd assortment of friends and acquaintances, some of whom I hadn't seen all academic year. Cass, meanwhile, had settled into a much calmer and more leisurely beat down at the famous "Mia Cuccina", where she and her good friend, Kristin, could enjoy a much anticipated old fashioned catch-up. They enjoyed a superb meal and tasty wine and were able to while away the hours in fine style.

It just never gets old to watch the first ball of the first test of the Australian summer, especially an Ashes test! I was like a little boy on Christmas Day, quite fevered with excitement, so much so that I was wide awake and full of kinetic energy at 7.30 a.m. in anticipation of the start at 8. I must admit that I pretty much didn't miss too much after that for the next four days! We managed to schedule other activities and jobs in and around the hours of play and had a most satisfying holiday weekend, while keeping a close eye on proceedings in the cricket. The Australians covered themselves in glory and were able to wrap up the result quite quickly and efficiently this morning, even though the result was in the balance for the best part of three and a half days. We can't wait for the day/night test in Adelaide soon!

Taking advantage of our mid-week leisure time, I met up with other like minded, including Marcus, Shaun and Terry so we could also have a much anticipated, long-awaited catch-up. It was drizzly evening, but we managed to have a great time discussing the latest and greatest (it always amazes me how much time we spend and how very little we actually talk about.....must be a lot of "filler"!). The following day, Cass and I dined at the magnificent Din Tai Feng, Taiwan's own export to the world, and the xiao long bao and dumplings were as exquisite in creation and delicious in taste as we remembered and now expect.

A chance meeting down at the SOGO Uniqlo with Annie and Marcus was good fun and we chatted for ages as the boys ran amok in the fashion displays. It's amazing how quickly the boys are growing: Cass got a shock when she picked up Eli for a cuddle!

The rain continued to worry and bother during the duration of the break, just enough to stop us embarking on any massive journey, yet also sufficient to assuage any guilt we felt in not leaving the house! We did have a fairly firm plan to catch the high speed rail down the west coast to Taichung for two days and a night, but delayed until Friday to see if the weather would co-operate: it didn't, so we stayed put....looks like an adventure for another occasion.

Photos: I forgot to mention that the long weekend began with a "Wellness Day" for the Eighth Grade. We had our homeroom for the entire day with various activities that began with a trip downtown to the bowling alley and culminated in a chicken dance contest! The bowling had to be seen to be believed: I now know why the local alleys don't want us back! Cass managed to sneak up the back for a while and despite the cacophonous din, get a little grading down! The first shot is artifcial grass on a scooter (no, I don't know why!), shots of the bowling and then Wal with a strangely designed place-mat down at Uli's (it's supposed to be half a chef's head but,...well,...!) The boys are growing bigger and we enjoyed a tiny bottle of wine with, of all things, a cork!

There is an obvious and yawning chasm between what is socially acceptable in general society in Taiwan and that which is considered bearable in the parliament, so much so, that the dichotomy in behaviours is stark and shocking. While citizens generally rival the Japanese in their devotion to politeness and friendliness in public spaces, the Taiwanese parliament has long been a source of horrified mirth for world-wide audiences. Debates quite often descend into drag-down full-on fights with men and women punching, scratching and wrestling each other in scenes quite unbecoming to their office. I spied the latest such incident on the local news (photo above) and it was all about minor changes to the hours worked in the regular week...heaven help us if a really contentious issue ever arises.

The school promoted and hosted a "Wellness Convention" on Friday and Saturday, an event in which we were fully immersed whether we liked it or not! The faculty, parents and high school students were all encouraged to participate to address the need for a balance of life and not a sole dedication to work and a pursuit of academic excellence at all costs. There were many high profile and keynote speakers from around the world (mostly from the U.S., but there was one guy from Australia!), who explained and advised on various wellness topics. There were lectures on adolescent development, breakout sessions on sleep and aromatherapy and hands-on workshops on mindfulness and yoga and anything you can imagine in between......there was even a mass drum circle beating out the message at lunchtime!

Exhausted from all this wellness, we took a pretty old-school approach to our own version of wellness on the weekend: mainly sleeping in, eating decadent treats and hard-charging some nature in vigorous exercise in the rain!

We did our various jobs on Saturday, such as grocery shopping at a few different venues, but we did, however, get the walking shoes on to do it, as the temperature dial swung back from "roasting" down to a relatively benign "pleasant" for the first time in quite a while. The temple park across the river was having trees transplanted by huffing diggers and the air was heavy with the scent of dirt and roots. Jobs completed, we settled in to enjoy the tinkling patter of rain dropping on the corrugated roofs below as we watched some TV in the waning afternoon/evening light.

The intimidating Tienmu Gudao serenaded with her siren call on Sunday morning, so we braved the spitting and tremulous skies to challenge the steps yet again. Cass felt her ankle had adequately healed to face the possibly perilous and slippery conditions, so we set off armed with a bottle of water each and steel in our resolve! The fallen leaves and runoff combined to form a skiddy slurry on many steps, so we needed to tread carefully on the way up. We nearly had a heart attack when fast moving, furry brown creatures disturbed the undergrowth from a bamboo copse, and hurtled straight toward us: luckily, instead of a Macaque attack, two stray cats burst onto the path and jettisoned themselves ever upward, hissing and caterwauling our fears away!

The hike was enervating, yet mercifully cooler than usual as the temperature had dropped yet again from the day before, and the misting rain was refreshing rather than annoying. We spied a long, juicy worm with a head shaped like a hammer, and some beautiful red flowers folded against the wind and rain. The ancient, brawny bulk of the Japanese-era water pipes that navigate beside the trail are covered in algae and moss, and the bamboo stalks that drape over the path are like something from a panda picture book. There is always a rich palette and a changing one, no matter how many times we visit.

We're both still ploughing through "The Road to Jonestown"...that guy was a real nutcase! Speaking of which, and eerily segued (the author of "...Jonestown" also wrote a comprehensive expose on Manson which I read), the infamous 60's murderer Charles Manson died just an hour ago. I've been quite fascinated with this nutter since reading "Helter Skeltor" years ago: I'll miss him! Photos: Parliamentary mayhem, wellness banners and a drum circle, shots from the steps.

I've described the tearing of various vital components of my shoulder in a previous post, so I won't go into the details again here. Suffice to say, the damage done by an escaping kayak on the middle school camp and my lunging efforts to retrieve it are still reverberating. I was lucky that I mentioned it to Shaun a couple of weeks back as he got me in to see "his guy", a difficult feat, as this in-high-demand sports massager has now closed his books to new customers!

I scootered up to Tienmu West Road on Friday evening for my appointment and Allen, with faultless English, quizzed me about the origins of the injury and the subsequent pain and/or movement. After we established a few base parameters he proceeded to knead and manipulate all the muscles in my shoulder to free up the joint. He was careful and patient, but still managed to really get "stuck in". I've got some deep tissue bruising from the work he did, but I hope it will recover before my next session later this week.

We hadn't experienced the gourmet bespoke burgers from Burger Ray for some time, so on Saturday afternoon/evening, we decided it was about time. They were as delicious as ever, probably more so as absence has made the heart grow fonder! One slight flaw in the ordering process was the fact they didn't have any fries on the day! I couldn't quite figure out why, but regardless, thought that this situation just wasn't natural!

I hadn't darkened the doorstep of McDonald's since a late night snack with the groom at Wal's wedding three years ago, so it was a bit weird to zip in there this time on a mission for fries. The 24 hour Maccas on the big intersection in Shilin was on one of my possible routes home, so I braved the crowds and stood in line for my two bags of chips. There were kids everywhere, careening around the ordering area like ten-pin bowling bowls. I have to admire that McDonalds serving culture: despite the chaos and the vast crowd, they were super efficient and got me my product in good time. Despite our misgivings about supporting this multi-national monster, those super fresh fries were super delicious!

Armed with hats and sunscreen and dressed in our daggiest wandering/biking gear, we trained down to Da'an Forest Park on Sunday to get a little Youbikin' done! The wander through the neighbourhood to the train station was pleasant in the dappled sunlight and we even managed to score a seat for part of our trip once we'd boarded and travelled half-way down. After the re-configuring of our local MRT, we can now reach the Xin Yi district of the city without changing trains, and we made the most of it by visiting this Central Park-like oasis in the middle of the new south eastern hub of the city. I've got an improved app that is linked in real-time to all the Youbike stations in Taipei, so we scanned it before disembarking to find the Youbike station most heavily laden with vehicles from which to select.

After disengaging the bikes from their lock stands, we circumnavigated the huge park. We hadn't realized we couldn't actually bike through the park: this was a bit of a bummer, but the ride around was good fun. After the circuit, we docked at a station just opposite the artists' corner and famous flower market so of course, we had to take a peak!

A brace of city blocks under the expressway near Xin Yi Road houses a car-park through the week, but it is transformed each weekend into a flourishing, green and perfumed urban forest. The time and effort to set up and take down these exhibits each week is almost beyond belief: some of the mature trees must need a mini-crane to get them in place and the paintings in the artists' corner must take countless hours to hang. It's always quite mind blowing to witness the scale and enormity of the operation. It never ceases to amaze us how much can be achieved when there is a seething population to support business ventures: even at low margins, all these stallkeepers must turn a profit....otherwise they wouldn't keep coming back.

We ate a snacky lunch before heading back on the train to our little northern suburb haven and two forever sleeping cats! It was a great, relaxing weekend amplified by our little adventure to a seldom visited section of the city and some fun sights along the way. As indicated in photos above, we spied some Taiwan Beer 6 packs being advertised by famous Taiwanese rockers, Mayday. One of my mates here wants us to collect little stickers for him from 7/11: you can see the Star Wars toaster, along with the toast burnt with Star Wars' emblems.....highly desired apparently! Our local river turtles, newly painted mural and shots from Youbiking and the Flower Market. We're both now reading "The Road to Jonestown" by Jeff Guinn....what a trip!

Gasp inducing anecdotes from the bad old days on Taipei's streets have been related to us on the odd occasion. When we're tempted to think that we're veterans of the Taiwanese expat community, we're brought back to earth by someone more "senior", sometimes by decades! This always tends to amplify the benefits of living in this wonderful safe, modern city these days and also makes us realise how much even we've seen change.

Not long before we arrived in Taiwan, the local government authorities had a fairly "basic" approach to garbage collection and it wasn't uncommon for most street corners to have steaming mountains of putrefying filth attracting vermin and disease for indeterminate periods, before a languid city truck deigned to clean it all up. Fast forward a couple of decades and not only is the city clean and fresh, but Taipei is leading the world in garbage collection and more importantly, recycling. We have days dedicated to flat plastic, other plastic, styrofoam, steel and aluminium, and daily collections of food scraps, some for pig swill and some for compost!

It was into this almost pristine environment we strode, our mission to collect garbage and clean up various public spaces within the general vicinity of the school. The Grade 8 Community Day is a long-running tradition and used to garner some great loads of trash and really make a difference for a day or two. Trouble is, that as the years roll on, everyone is sooo terribly responsible and citizenly, that there is almost nothing to collect: some larks even suggested that the school needed to go out overnight and, in a clandestine fashion, seed the parks with some trash for the kids to collect the next day!

Despite expectations, there is always the odd dog poo or disintegrating piece of plastic hidden under clumps of bushes where the regular city cleaners don't venture. We completed our missions, and spent the rest of the day watching uplifting videos and discussing the merits of giving back to individuals and communities and setting the kids up to embark on their own individual community service projects.

We took advantage of the glistening edifice that dominates our little village area when we dined at Din Tai Fung for the first time in a while. Being quite hungry by the time we wandered down fairly late in proceedings and enduring a 20 minute wait in line, the offerings were judged to be even more exquisite than usual! I downloaded an app which keeps us up to date on the wait times, so we can wander around the store in the future as we wait for our spot. Cass did a quick reccy in Uniqlo but didn't see anything tempting to buy and we shopped for a few gourmet food items while we were in the SOGO building.

It's anathema for me to enter school grounds on the weekend, but I had to join my colleagues to grade some external test papers on Saturday afternoon, despite my misgivings about breaking a long-standing "rule"! I've got a ton of grading to do in the next couple of weeks and this blog writing is just the first step of my procrastination! The tests keep on coming, but once I do the arduous part (the writing samples), the rest is relatively straight forward, if time consuming.

The weather has partly turned here at last and we're enjoying some warm to cool days and nights. Despite that, we're both reading "The Dry" at the moment and Jane Harper's descriptions of a long hot Aussie drought almost bring a sheen of sweat to the brow, they're so evocative and succinctly wrought. Photos are rather sparse today....some of the clean-up crew ready to embark (you can spy Cassy in the far left of the first photo: she has a white shirt), Youbikes and Din Tai Fung.