A lot has been packed into a very eventful week after our shipping guy came, I had a birthday, we managed to book some flights and I'm getting some bites on the bait I threw out about selling the car.
Mr Ho's booming voice announcing his arrival had to be "shooshed" as our landlord, Mr. Lee, doesn't know about our departure as yet! Mr. Ho is a wily veteran of the shipping/packing game and is the president of his own company shipping worldwide. He did an inventory of our to-be-shipped goods quite casually, pointing out things he spotted and having us confirm or deny their status. He was very efficient and had a great eye for size, shape and approximate weight and was finished his first sweep in no time at all after going through each room. He then sat down at the table and made a more formal inventory for us to sign. He said we had a medium level of furniture and would fill no more than half a container: I'll be amazed if it fills a quarter of one, but he's the expert! Our tentative date to get shipped out is June 8, but tentative is the operative word.
Based on that information we searched for and booked some flights on China Airlines for June 11, Taipei to Sydney. There's no guarantee at all that this flight will actually take to the skies, but everyone is pretending it will at this time. I suppose we'll find out more as the time draws nearer and we won't be holding our breath that everything goes smoothly.
I was trepidatious about completing my annual pushup challenge the following day but somehow psyched my self up to just complete the requisite number. It is a strange thing to do on a special day: set oneself up for possible failure and a reminder of crumbling bones, atrophying muscle and time slowly eking away, yet when completed victoriously, the feeling is of quiet euphoria....I was secretly buzzing all day.
I've been negotiating with a few people about buying the car. Our much loved "silver bullet" needs to move onward, and is a sensational buy for someone. I've priced it at a rock-bottom level to get rid of it but the result has been that it has scared some people away: they are wondering if there is something wrong with it because it is so cheap! The fact is that despite its great luxury specifications it's pretty old...even I was shocked when I realized it was a 1997 model! Anyway, I'm racing over to the garage after school to retrieve it and then drive it to show to a potential buyer...fingers crossed!
We walked the river on the weekend before eating out at Bad Ass Burger (!) where we enjoyed the latest version of the previous shop, Eat Burger. They've retained most of the good taste and interesting menu of the former shop while instilling a wrestling theme, creating a fun atmosphere. The much loved Jake's Country Kitchen was our first stop, but despite the opening hours indicating it was open, the restaurant was forlornly shut up when we visited their Deshing East Rd. location earlier. It is rumoured to be closing for good at the end of the month, so we're trying to get one last meal in: they've been open and offering American fare in Tienmu since the late seventies!
Taiwan continues to do a spectacular job in controlling the coronavirus here, but a warning for everyone occurred just yesterday. You can never rest on your laurels. Despite their superhuman efforts and results on containment and tracking, it just goes to show that simple things can upset the apple-cart, even though there were zero cases on three occasions this week. A navy ship doing a tour of the Pacific docked and three young guys had symptoms. They immediately quarantined 700 people and 21 positive cases were found. The authorities have already contacted about 3,000 possible contacts with more to come. Taiwan's total caseload, as a result of this, is now 420, a remarkable effort, but one that shows vigilance can never waver.
Photos: Taiwan can help, "Blackie" got a parking ticket and a nice photo in the mail!, a meat truck leaves nothing to the imagination, Bad Ass Burger wrestlers and singers, photos from the river walk. Oh and video of my annual birthday challenge!