If you're a foreigner in a city anywhere in the world, where would you rather live? Unsurprisingly, Taipei has been voted the best city in the world for ex-pats two years in a row. Check out the short news item here.
It's turned quite cold here in Taipei in the lead-up to winter and the warm clothes and accoutrement have begun to appear (maybe they did the aforementioned survey in spring?!). We've switched the air-conditioner to heat mode and have just feathered a warm breeze around the apartment to counteract the cool, humid pervasive feel. It's worked pretty well and the obligatory lounging tracky dacs and Ugg boots have completed the job! Mary's old bones cry out for her fluffy rugs and she now has many nesting spots set up in most rooms of the house!
The inhospitable weather has been compounded by incessant, annoying rain morning to night. Cass braved the conditions on Thursday to meet her book club mates at a local Indian restaurant, Moksha. They found it to be excellent, a step up from when Cass and I had visited previously when I found the curry dishes a bit on the politically correct side of "saltlessness"(!). Apparently, they've corrected this minor flaw and everything was fresh, beautifully prepared, presented and served. As it was a "school night", they were very circumspect in their wine consumption and an early night was had by all.
We did the grocery shopping as usual on Saturday. Readers in Australia might find this a quirky exercise. We never use a car and very rarely a motor-scooter: most of the time we walk and lug the bags back by foot. We stroll through a park opposite our place then cross a bridge over "Sulfur Creek", always keeping half an eye out for the turtles sunning themselves on the rocks below. Then we cross another park dotted with tennis courts and temples, Cass always stirring some interest from the old guys huddled around the mahjong boards! Down an alley, across a busier road and down into a basement supermarket where we can source a lot of things, not all. We then hump the four big bags on our shoulders, tracing the same route back, up the stairs to the third floor and unpack. The shopping experience itself in-store is another story entirely: I'll save that for another time!
We were drawn into a shopping maelstrom, quite unwittingly, on Saturday afternoon. Seething hordes of bargain seekers had flocked to the local SOGO to take advantage of an annual offer of discounts. The bargain offer didn't seem so attractive to us, a little stingy in fact, but it held enough fascination for thousands of people to jam every store and floor in the building. We just wanted some dumplings! We fought our way downstairs and sneaked into Din Tai Feng for our usual feast. Later we went upstairs to buy some supplies at Uniqlo, but the snaking queue for the registers was of such length that we wondered if we'd ever get out of there! Abandoning our original plan, we got some cake at Wendel's, some extra grocery supplies at Carrefour, and went home to hunker down away from the cold.
It was a great relaxing weekend and we're ready for another full week at work. Christmas is not too far away....Photos: Wal and I were featured on The Patio's facebook page, some Din Tai Feng shots, Cassy's favorite lily on the way to the supermarket, the famous red bag carrying (!). The last shot I found quite fascinating: our kids are only halfway through Grade 8 and this was a problem on their Math review booklet...some evidence of the amazing levels of achievement in Asia!