As previously reported, we got an extra couple of days at the end of the quarter to pad out Spring Break, but we instantly got that bonus taken away when school went back to online learning this week necessitating a scramble to get lessons tuned and video-casting software tested over the weekend on Saturday and Sunday. Luckily, we'd had a lot of adventures through the week, unlike many round the world, so we're thankful for that.

I got a call, quite fortuitously, from my parking garage informing me that chemicals from a leaking pipe had erupted all over our car. Luckily I went to retrieve and wash it the day before our first planned trip whereupon I discovered a flat tyre. Miraculously, I found a park and scootered over to the nearest mechanic's, who scootered back with a huge compressed air cylinder and a jack, re-inflated the tyre roadside and got me back on the road. Unbelievably, this service cost just $12 Aus, and the guy refused to accept a cent more!

Newly inflated and a spring in its revolutions, we took the car out on the expressway the next morning bound for the north coast and more specifically Bitoujiao. We're getting rid of the car soon, so this may well be its last hurrah...we'll miss it! Bitoujiao is a very attractive, reasonably arduous hike that scrambles and meanders across craggy seaside cliffs, snaking around headland military installations, punctuated by headland topping viewing pagodas and ultimately ending in a picture perfect fishing village on a tiny sheltered harbour with a bobbing fishing fleet. Cass does this trek many times a day annually on our Grade 8 camp to Fulong, yet I'd never done it, so we thought we'd try it without the accompaniment of 220 screaming kids to spoil the serenity!

It was fun trek and extremely picturesque. We ate Cassy's home-cooked curried egg sangas in a pagoda beside the snorkeling pool at the end of the hike and admired the strangely shaped sandstone cliffs and the fishing boats festooned with multiple, orb-like prawning lights. Onward we drove, back towards Keelung, destination Elephant Trunk Rock which is self-descriptive! On the way we stopped to view the old gold factory ruins on the off peak from traditional and beautiful Ruifang village. It's still a very imposing sight and the mist and cloud added to the ethereal effect. "The Rock" was giant sized and unexpected! We walked from yet another fishing village, crabbed across boulders and mud before emerging at the top of the outcrop to see the fully formed elephant: photos capture some of the essence but it's one of those sights that has to be seen to be believed! We eventually got back to the car, motored home and secreted the car back in its underground sanctuary with all his mates!

When Chiang Kai Shek fled mainland China in 1949 he "brought" (plundered?!) thousands of precious Chinese antiquities and pieces of art with him. These saved relics from the various purges of Mao Tse Tung can now be seen at the National Palace Museum, a vast repository of priceless Chinese artworks, just a hop, skip, jump and scooter ride from our house! We've been before specifically to see a visiting Monet exhibition but have been scared off re-visiting from the stories of others about the vast halls, multiple storied galleries and the general unmanageable size of the place. We're pleased to report that after negotiating every floor and every room we were suitably slowed but not defeated: we're veterans of the Louvre, the Rijksmuseum and other galleries of much more imposing proportions than this little fella!

The porcelain rooms were the real treasures. Delicate materials and intricate designs along with flawless manufacturing were the constants, quite marvelous considering some of the bowls, vases and ornaments were more than 1,500 years old! The various royal houses of China were displayed in room after room in decreasing age brackets, some of the oldest being the most exquisite. There were also rooms and rooms of impossibly penned drawings in ink, flowing and sensuous calligraphy and even modern hi-tech digital displays. It was a feast for the senses and a very special experience. What made it even better for us was the visitor to staff ratio: about two to one in our favour! No more 100s of tour coaches stuffed to the brim with Chinese tour groups and we got there early enough, mid-week to beat the Taiwan late risers. All which made it an even better experience!

We're back at work today in an echoing building. Some teachers are here (not many) but no kids. We were streaming video and flitting between pages and platforms today, so needed the lightning fast internet and the tech back-up if anything went wrong. We'll come in again tomorrow, but with a lighter bandwidth demand from our lessons in the remainder of the week, we might just stay domiciled. The link to the full album of the week is here. Photos: self explanatory, except for Cass in her newly altered winter coat with the famous "lady", her beloved seamstress!

My apologies for not meeting my usual deadline for publishing (Monday), but when we're on Spring Break I usually have a break as well. I'd uploaded some photos over the weekend so I thought I'd pen a few words to accompany them.

We got an early mark for our break on Wednesday afternoon when the Taiwanese government again leapt into action in a matter of hours to make yet another wise and prudent decision for the health of all. A human flood was anticipated to enter Taiwan from stateside universities and colleges as they went on spring breaks, so the government immediately announced that anyone entering the country would need to isolate themselves at special quarantine hotels for 14 days. Any citizens allowed home would need to observe the 14 days as well as any family member. This would have affected about 200 of our students straight away so the decision to close early was made. We did yet another session of e-learning for that stint.

Prior to that we were at school in the throes of a modified spirit week as I'd mentioned previously. In a country so ahead of the game in terms of managing this virus I wanted to again laud everything being done for us by governments and law enforcement. "Entry tracking" is an example for the world. People are whisked from airports in special quarantine cabs and buses...no contact with the general public is allowed. Once in their stated destinations they are locked down for 14 days. Their mobile phones are tracked and officials or police check in with them 3 times a day. If their phone remain immobile for any short period of time, officers physically visit their home and check they haven't gone anywhere. To top it off, there are gargantuan fines for non-compliance. Most importantly, this has been happening for weeks, way before anyone saw the necessity for these seemingly draconian actions.

Taiwan has had a fully staffed "war room" operating full time since the SARS epidemic in 2004. They initiated it in response to flaws identified in their protocols at that time. Apparently 100 or more people have been employed there constantly ever since. They were able to pounce on the possibility of an outbreak even before the Chinese realized its immensity and scope. No-one will be able to stop this virus, but I think Taiwan actually will "flatten the curve" and be able to cope. Seems like Australia is finally understanding the enormity of this problem: hopefully the horse hasn't bolted.

We've been doing our regular 5 km river walk loop and continuing to spot a dazzling array of fauna and flora. What our those strange stalk like flowers that have appeared magically staked up in various garden beds and parks along the route? We saw various moops, water moops, egrets and turtles each day and even had an encounter with an inquisitive lizard sunning himself boldly on one of the concrete bollards along the pathway! We've had a number of other adventures in the past couple of days, but that's official fodder for next Monday's entry so I'll leave it till then!

These are awful times and I don't want to sound preachy: however, wash your hands vigorously and often, and stay away from people as much as is humanly possible. We do these things as part of our normal lives anyway, so we don't have to change too much!

 

Taiwan seems to be doing a better job than most in controlling the spread of Covid-19. In a country of mass urban population clusters and being just 300 km from the coast of China, it's remarkable that there haven't been mass outbreaks and cross-infections. Its proximity and close relationship in terms of people transportation with China should have almost guaranteed an uncontrollable outbreak, but strict protocols, quick action and an unselfish population have kept infections in check.

In contrast, with eerily similar populations (about 24 million), Australia seems to be stuttering in their control of the virus. They have the advantage of physical distance from neighbours in a less than dense urban living pattern (Australia's population density is 3.3 people per sq. km. compared to Taiwan's 650!), and it is an isolated island nation. It seems that lax protocols (especially early on), and confusing, conflicting advice from governments and agencies along with a very selfish and/or flippant population (toilet paper apocalypse frenzy seems to be the standout visual symbol), are all contributing to the fact that Australia has five times the infection numbers and rate than that of Taiwan. 

In our own personal case, considering our upcoming move and change of circumstances, the virus couldn't have come at a worse time. We're teetering on the precipice of yet another school shutdown and a ramped up online learning structure, along with dealing with a stock-market and economy meltdown right at the point where we'll be relying on savings. Not only that, but we're wondering how easily we'll be able to enter our own country if things take their logical escalated course: please, let us in!

In spite of all that, we're delighted to have our health and we do worry about our relatives and friends, especially the even more elderly than us (!). If we can all avoid infection and sickness, that would be the greatest thing. We've been encouraged to see so many people recover from infection when they receive proper care and equally encouraged to notice that the infection rate seems to have peaked in Wuhan with single figure infections being reported daily of late.

Our last fun and frivolity in the guise of the annual Spirit Week is upon us. First day today is pajama day and Cass retrieved her trusty old silk Vietnamese PJs that have done sterling service for a long time....admittedly, it is the only day of the year she wears them! We've got clone day, sports day, character day and color day coming up so we have to make some sort of effort to be involved (!). As with nearly every event these days, some modifications need to be made as large gatherings are banned. This has necessitated each grade meeting in different venues which basically negates the idea of Spirit Week (who has the most "spirit"). At least we won't have to endure the ear-splitting "cheering" which is where each grade just shouts at the top of their voice for endless stints on numerous occasions....small mercies! We really can't fathom why they're still running it all: the kids seem blithely uninterested...maybe it's for the "King of the Kids" teachers, of which there is a plethora!

Photos: a Covid 19 chart of Taiwan, Cass with a stack of folders from all her years of drama production makeup with information and visual guides, Cass in pajamas in front of her desk and bulletin board today.

We've been tech wizards this weekend! Those people who have ever tried to wrangle a Microsoft Office Onenote folder more than a few megabytes in size will understand the task we undertook on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. By today, however, the end is in sight and we have a replica of Cassy's Grade 8 English Onenote on our personal cloud space. It is a digital imprint of her hard work over the last 18 years and a repository of lessons and resources: something to look back upon in her dotage?!

The IT department here at school was the root of the digital evil. Last year they insisted on moving the large Onenote folder into a cloud space and transferring the ownership of the folder from Cassy personally to a "sharepoint" that involved the entire Middle School English team. To operate the notebook day-to-day was exactly the same and seemingly, everything was fine.

When I made some initial attempts to copy, export or transfer files, I realised that these new permissions were problematical. Even the IT guru assistants were bamboozled. I might add that these were the very same boffins who had advised the move in the first place! The head of our divisional IT then the head of the school IT got involved and in what became a spoof of "Who's on first" they argued and inquired in email merry-go-rounds as to who owned what and to whom permissions needed to be granted and generally had absolutely no clue how to do any of it!!

The biggest problem was the sharing/ownership and the second biggest problem was the size: it was nearly 4 gigabytes, a gargantuan size for a single notebook. It had multiple sections and hundreds of pages, many of which were laden with embedded video files. In the end, the expertise of the assistant Annie started the process by installing most of the files from the copy I'd managed to save in an external hard drive into my cloud account. From there I managed to download some of the files on the weekend and make new folders and pages that pretty much exactly replicates the original.

So, we've had a win! It's used up the majority of the free storage I have on my Onedrive account, but that doesn't matter...I don't need it for anything else! So, the weekend was pretty much dedicated to tech issues. I also took the opportunity to consolidate my desktop folders full of movies and TV series and copy them onto an external hard drive.

I've just realized that the previous five paragraphs might go down in blog history as the most boring ever written: sorry about that, but we're always stoked with a tech win!

Photos: We managed to snare a packet of toilet paper in the supermarket without having to fight for it Australian style, Shakespeare is in full swing here in Grade 8 English, and a shot of me at my desk: you can see that not all the posters are Shakespearean!

The Tienmu Gudao is a famous track that has gone through various iterations. Most recently, it is a healthy challenge to negotiate its initial 1,400 stone steps only to emerge at the top to stroll along a gravel path on the ridge line. In more ancient times, it used to be a supply route for farmers from the mountain to the city, and last century the Japanese occupiers built a mighty water supply pipeline bringing the gushing streams of Yangminshan to the parched citizens in the then burgeoning city below.

The back-breaking engineering finished many decades ago and now the only dangers to life and limb are troops of Formosan Macaques who occasionally muscle in to the bucolic scenes of nature-walking alongside mountain outcrops and bubbling brooks. They shriek and natter off the path, swing through the canopy and occasionally plonk themselves in quite intimidating spots on the path, sometimes in front and behind. Mercifully, on Sunday, no simians smirked and no apes aped: we were safe it seemed!

We traveled the ridge line till the end and continued onward up another set of punishing and precarious steps, up, up and ever upwards! Eventually, we were released from the climb and a small access road led up to the Cultural College or down to the river. We went down and joined a less-trod path that we'd negotiated many times, but had neglected for the past few years. It looked like everyone else had similarly neglected it! The moss was growing across the flagstones and the bridges felt a little rickety, and although the river rushed and flurried it was a peculiar shade of bright orange which looked suspiciously unnatural.

We followed the river for a stint, brushing past pussy willows and bushes flush with butterfly-like, brilliant white flowers. There were purple blooms dotting the sides of the path leading along the valley and we even had to negotiate a flooded muddied section oozing black goo where the water had burst through the regular channels and invaded the pathway. The path led upwards again and we detoured along the side of the mountain, across danger tape and warning signs before negotiating a recent landslide and descending once again to the valley floor.

The market gardens on the flat were sadly neglected, the rows of baby vegetables providing an unguarded feast for the cabbage moths, and it looked like the hobby farmers hadn't been able to tend their crops for some time. It was slightly forlorn, and we decided that this was a good point to turn around, retrace our steps and head back to civilization.

The previous evening we'd made a trip to the cinema at Shinkong Mitsukoshi to see "The Invisible Man". We're big fans of Elisabeth Moss and again she didn't disappoint, although a few scenes where she wasn't centre stage fell a little flat. I was slightly flummoxed by the "high tech" suit as well: the cameras looked decidedly low tech much like a suit full of portable web-cams!

Afterwards, we scootered across the suburb to the Indian restaurant Moksha. Cass had recently had a great experience with her book club and they thoroughly enjoyed all the different items they'd ordered. I was a little wary after getting a flavour filled but decidedly unsalted version of my favourite chicken curry on a previous visit. It was still the same! I couldn't bring myself to ask for any salt, not wanting to offend the chefs who had prepared an undoubtedly genuine regional dish, but I wanted to! In India, I don't remember any reluctance to enhance dishes with condiments....maybe this is some variation. Anyway, Cass loved her food, I also liked mine but a pinch of salt would have made it perfect.....first world problems, I know!

We've made one week back on campus by the end of today and escaped the dreaded call of closure due to Covid 19. Fingers crossed that it continues that way. Photos: Queuing to enter the main school building as temperatures are taken and hands sanitized, the life-size puppet gods are out on display round the corner from our place, Cass at the cinema, and shots of the Tienmu Gudao path including the suspicious "orange" river!