With more farewells than Dame Nellie Melba, Shaun and Katie were yet again the stars of the show at a private function for close friends down at Wooloomooloo in the XinYi district in the south eastern districts.
Taipei is a glittering showpiece on a Saturday night and the sparkle and verve were on full display in the upstairs floor at Wooloomooloo. There was Aussie style finger food, Aussie beers, margueritas and wine and lots of interesting people all with a friendship with the guests of honour and all keen to send them out with a farewell to remember. Unfortunately, Cass couldn't make it due to her lingering blocked sinuses and flu-like symptoms, so I hitched a lift with Annie and Wal and we made it down there in good time.
The night before I'd arranged to catch up with the mercurial Trevor on another one of his flying visits to Taipei. It was hard to believe it had been almost a year since his last visit, but he'd been counting the days. He has a genuine love for all things Taiwanese and loves to travel the backroads and backlanes of the city to spot all manner of interesting activities and cultural quirks. It's always great to catch up. The surprise for both of us was the huge presence of Uli at his eponymous restaurant, large as life, sitting at the outside table puffing on a cigar!
Uli keeps an interest in Uli's Deli restaurant here in Taipei as well as managing the day-to-day activities of his bigger operation in Seattle. He materializes at random times and always is keen to share some reminisces of the good old days in Taipei, which I can't relate to as most of them were before our time. It was fortuitous that Trev was there as the two "old-timers" kept themselves amused with one anecdote after another.
On Sunday, Cass felt sufficiently recovered to try a mild outing so we scootered across to the Miramar at Shinkong Mitsukoshi and booked into our favourite seats in Cinema 6, H4 and H5. We'd hoped to get to see Bohemian Rhapsody the weekend before, but were determined to see it before it disappeared, as can happen suddenly here in Taipei. Cass was a particularly intense fan of Queen in the 70s and 80s, and although I was too, she was the number one ticket holder! Unfortunately we never got to see Freddie in full flight, but we did travel to Osaka a couple of years ago to see Queen perform with Adam Lambert and a duet he did with a "virtual" Freddie was the highlight of the festival. The film's magic re-enactment of the Live Aid concert was authentic and palpable, and the rest of the story was highly watchable if not a little hokey/kitsch in parts. Congrats to Rami Malek for bringing the rock god back to life!
On a wildly divergent thread, Taiwan is apparently tightening up its scooter licensing rules in response to a rise in traffic fatalities, now numbering more than 8 per day. My only comments would consist of these: if all the questions in the licensing test are as obvious as the ones above, toughen it up! Also, this shot of motor-scooters in a feed road to a main bridge is not atypical: when riding in crowds like this, accidents are going to happen!
I've penned a little tribute to our cat, Virgil, or at least outlined her last days, in a separate post below...