Our ten day break in Thailand started with a conference and ended with lots of swimming, sunning, strolling, sitting and stuffing! I'm glad i decided to bite the bullet today and get digits to keyboard, otherwise I may well have never started again! it's not a malaise of blogging, but rather a weariness of a very long and busy school year catching up with us. After an uber-relaxing break, time back at work has been extremely enervating!

We began the time in the Thai capital Bangkok, a pulsing mass of steel and concrete, traffic clogged arteries below Sky trains purring overhead, and a constant cloying and sapping heat. The conditions are relieved at regular intervals by another gigantic and salubrious air-conditioned shopping mall, full of designer gear which is copied and sold at a 100th of the price by the hawkers sweating on the footpaths just outside.

Our hotel, the Park Plaza was a hidden gem just off Sukhumvit, with a spacious, well appointed corner room offering a stunning view of the city, a rooftop pool to relieve the heat and an amazing breakfast along with coffee, tea and snacks all day. We ventured from here to various points in the city via the conveniently close Asoke sky train station, taxi and even tuk-tuk. Most of the time however, being so conveniently located, we braved the din and the sweat and walked.

First stop, the esteemed Empire Tailors, where I was measured up for a bespoke 3 piece suit of the finest wool/cashmere mix along with two bespoke Egyptian cotton, cuffed shirts. What an exceptional "shopping" experience this was, coming from a life-long committed non-shopper. Service and knowledge at the fore, Sunny and his calm team made the first of three measuring sessions to produce what is an amazing product...I reckon it has achieved a pretty remarkable feat of even making me look good!

Of course the Thai food was paramount each day. We dabbled a little at breakfast, snacked on the local cuisine for lunch and went all out with multiple ethnic dishes of the realm at dinner time. Some of the meals we had were unforgettable: to the extent that the Thai restaurants we have here will fade in our estimation of their excellence after the fare we sampled in the homeland.

We travelled by taxi across the city to visit the twin attractions of the Grand Palace and surrounds as well as the reclining Buddha. After donning appropriate "leggings" to cover my offensively naked legs,we strolled with a crowd into the inner sanctums of the complex. Let it never be said that the Thais be outdone on covering their precious temples with gold: the dazzling spectacle that greeted us at every turn was retina achingly magnificent, if not more than a little over-the-top. It certainly provided us with some perfect photo opportunities..in fact I drained the camera's batteries taking shot after shot. We walked a long way (later, I realised the wrong way around!) to get to the Temple of the reclining Buddha. Apparently, the largest gold-covered Buddha in the world, it seemed like we were doing a mini "Super Buddhas of the World" tour, because we'd seen the largest wooden Buddha in the world just at Christmas time in Japan! Anyway, this guy was certainly a wondrous sight and the incredible oversized nature of the Buddha has to be seen to be believed.

On Saturday, we braved the seething hordes at one of the world's largest markets, Chatachuk Markets, to again experience the enormity of the place, mix with 200,000 other humans in a confined place under a hot tin roof, and perhaps secure a few bargains of Thai silk and others. After an intense train ride to the end of the line we were spat out to join the spawning salmon as we swam and jostled upstream, spilling off the narrow footpath onto the road and dodging a cacophonous tide of endlessly beeping, chaotic traffic all the way to the market entrance. Mercifully, at this point, the roads divided to many insertion points into the market proper, and while the tidal surge reversed to sweep us along, it was a lot easier to make a few adjustments to our pace. Inside, we made sure to replenish our water supply at regular intervals and we managed to secure a few trinkets, among them belts, pillow covers, t-shirts, ties and cuff links (for my new cuffed shirts!).

I had a special treat on Sunday when I visited the famous Ratchadamnoen Stadium, not only with front row ringside seat, but also to join the after party of one of the victorious boxers! Cass demurred on the opportunity, so I left her luxuriating in the opulence of the hotel to travel across town by tuk-tuk. Each bout was exciting, but no more so that when the only non-Thai boxer, an Aussie boy who had been raised in Thailand, knocked out one of the local favourites. After witnessing the frenetic betting of the men in the bleachers and the atmosphere as one fighter became more dominant against his opponent and the crowd whipped itself into a raucous frenzy, at the end of proceedings, I was invited to a bar to celebrate the young guy's win. Although he mainly had orange juice, his dad and other entourage proved to be willing and enthusiastic participants in an exciting bar crawl across the city...good fun!

Our hired car whisked us away for a three hour drive to Hua Hin at much the same time as Cassy's parents were doing exactly the same thing. We'd been working on a surprise for Cassy's birthday for some time, culminating in organising Chris and Val to come and stay at the same resort as for 5 days. After a few minor hiccups, I got Chris and Val to come across to our room as they'd arrived a couple of hours before us. The result can be seen in the video above or here! I don't think you can get a much better reaction than that! The subsequent five days were a lazy hazy crazy mix of eating fine cooked breakfast at a very decadent hour, lazing by the pool for the majority of the day before heading out each day for yet another superb dinner of the most mouthwatering Thai cuisine you could find. Cassy and i both had lots of time to sit and chat with her parents, and I think it was the most magical birthday for Cass. On her birthday itself, we ate at a restaurant overlooking the Gulf of Thailand, right on the beach, and relaxed from late afternoon through to the evening. Lights twinkled on boats in the gulf almost like a birthday cake emblazoned with candles and the fine food, wine and especially the company made it a night to remember. At the end of our time it was very difficult to wrench ourselves away and start the long journey back home: especially as Chris and Val were going back to Bangkok before traveling on to Chiang Mai!

I've subsequently celebrated my big birthday this weekend and it was marked by a small select gathering of the brethren at KGB (burger joint down town), before we did a bit of bar hopping around the city. I remember being in cabs for a great portion of the night, but perhaps that was an illusion! Gurecki left his camera somewhere, so I've volunteered to help retrace our steps this evening in a quest to find it. I'm sure there won't be anything on it quite like in the movie, "The Hangover", but we still want to find it! On the day itself, Mum rang up and I got dozens of well wishes via text, email and facebook from friends and family...it was really nice to see how many people wanted to celebrate the dawning of my old age (!) Oh, and as a little challenge I set myself, I also did 70 consecutive pushups just to show off...video evidence available soon!

Photos: two old people with their cards up top, before lots of Thailand photos. Also a slide show up top for a while, or here later on.

Lazy days in our house this weekend as we wind down in preparation for our trip to Thailand in a couple of days. We're off to the EARCOS teacher's conference in Bangkok for 5 days then plan to relax at a slick hotel down the coast for another 5 days in Hua Hin. Our accommodation in both places is a little splurgy for us, supposedly 4 star, so we'll hopefully not get too spoiled.

We've both had a great kick-start to our mini break with respective book club meetings on Friday night. As is their custom, Cassy's club met at one of the girls' places for a home cooked gourmet meal and my mob met at the famous "Big Brother" pub out along the MRT line at Qiyan. We both had a great time in our different ways!

Cass also endured the middle school spirit week this past week, which explains some of the stranger photos on here today. Colour day with hair accessory is always a big hit with the kids when they see Cass transformed with the long black wig! Kristin and Cass also had similar outfits for pajama day (with accessory of course) and Louise took a good shot of them in the auditorium.

Other photos are of cuddling cats, super size dancing puppets at the temple round the corner and the famous beer tappers and squid balls at Big Brother. Of course, Cassy's new super diamonds are on show as well...they're her early birthday present. That's it! We're flying out on Wednesday morning, so it's probable I'll not write the blog new week. We'll be back on April 7.

As you know, I broke a rib and tore up lots of rib cartilage more than 6 weeks ago, but despite doctor's best advice and my own layman style researching on the internet, my ribs are yet to heal after this benchmark period. The problem is that most nights I manage to re-injure them in an unconscious state of sleep. I have a very weird sleeping default position which involves me lying spreadeagled on my stomach,with my arms under my pillow! This bizarre sleeping position has never been a problem before (except perhaps for Cassy having to view it, but I'm sure she's come to terms with it by now!), but now, when I wake, I realise I've once again done the very worst thing for my healing ribs, by stretching overhead. Despite my best attempts at change, I invariably wake myself up in pain at some stage of the night to register the fact that, once again, I've reverted to type in the night: frustrating! Added to my woes was my stupidity in challenging the increasingly muscle bound Cass to an arm wrestle the other morning on my "good" side. 99 times out of 100, she just weakly submits to my stupid challenges, but this time, she suddenly grabbed my arm with two hands and reefed it back towards her. I've now got strained shoulder ligaments to go with the ribs....serves me right doesn't it!! 

The sun peaked out from behind a drape of mist at times over the weekend, yet not enough to negate a very strange and unusual phenomenon from occurring. Dense fog was forecast for the 48 hours of the weekend, but it brought with it an extremely unwelcome side effect of heavy humidity. Our marble and tile floors were slick with moisture all weekend and everywhere we walked and everything we touched was damp and sticky. We needed to tip-toe around to avoid sliding all over, and each attempt to dry the slick lasted only ten minutes or so before the water returned. It was so bad we even started to look for water leaks at one stage! Mercifully, the worst appears to be over: floors were less sticky this morning and things are reverting to normal conditions. I hate to think what it did to our paintings and clothes....those "closet camels" would have been working overtime.

We had very unhealthy, but extremely delicious food treats on the weekend, with Maya wood fired pizzas on Saturday night and Chili's fare for a mid afternoon feast on Sunday. I even went so far as to eat my horded pack of chicken Twisties for tea later! (sent from Singapore by Lewy with another mate, Dave M). I reckon we can afford it every now and then: I think Asia has been good for us on the healthy eating frontline as well as the fact that we seem to have modified our body sizes to fit in with our hosts over the years. Cassy took another great armful of clothing round to "her lady" to get altered the other day: she has now had almost her entire wardrobe taken in, as the "lady" seems to be some kind of uber seamstress who can alter anything....she's even giving a swimming costume a go at the moment in preparation for our trip to Thailand.

We got over to Miramar to watch a movie, The Grey, and we were pretty impressed. Cass was less keen than I, partly owing to the graphic plane crash and subsequent stalking of the human survivors by a pack of wolves, but it was a cut above the usual offering in the wilderness, macho-survive against the odds genre. 

I had parent conferences through the week and Cassy persuaded me to leave my flowing locks on for them. Subsequently I got a hair cut: before and after shots can be seen above. Also, Chili's window seat, Gurecki toasting the sunset on Friday afternoon (a few "boys" came to visit while Cass was down at Joe's inspecting and modifying the prototype for her new earrings), cats dozing, Cassy winning a plush squirrel and a watermelon bonanza down at the Shi Dong!

 

It's a little freaky experiencing an epiphany on a looping overhead freeway while traffic whizzes and wails past you on either side. Taipei is like that sometimes: it can lull you into a false sense of comfort and suddenly, BANG, it reminds you with a hit and a jolt that yes, you really are driving on a downtown traffic-dodging overhead ribbon in a seething, pulsing city of six million people crammed into a tiny land footprint, all very busy getting where they need to go very fast!

We were on our way downtown to visit the exhibition of new Australian contemporary art at the MOCA, Taipei. It was another cold and blustery day, of which we've had more than our fair share on recent weekends, so we'd decided to kill a few birds with one stone. Due to the fact that my rib and surrounding cartilage are still groaning at any real stretching physical activity, the car has not had an outing to the beach for more than a few weeks. Needing to make sure I didn't repeat my battery draining neglect of a few months back, we wanted to get the car out and about. Cass suggested we visit either the MOCA Aussie exhibit or another at the National Palace Museum, featuring works on Greek and Roman legends from the Louvre. MOCA won out on this occasion, but as we'd left our run a bit late, we decided to eat on the way if we could score a precious park anywhere near a restaurant.

We'd just about given up any hope of a park when a gap at the curb, a loading zone mid-week and an ambiguous sign combined to allow us to stop. We tried a new spot but we'd have to wait about 30 minutes. Undeterred, another new restaurant beckoned us around the corner and we had a magnificent  7 course meal at "Toros". This place was pretty impressive, and even though we felt a little under-dressed, we enjoyed a fine meal with beautiful ambiance and doting service for an amazing price. The steak was first class, but chef's suggested cooking time for the cut of meat was under what Cass would have preferred. That slight problem notwithstanding, Toros was certainly a standout. Paying more than usual, we were a little surprised at the cost until we translated back into Aussie dollars: just $70 for two, all those courses and a glass of red wine each on top...we'll struggle again this year coming to terms with Australian prices I suspect. Check out our set menu here: we'll definitely be back.

The squalls hit again as we left the restaurant and the wind and rain were a towel flicking our legs and a watering can showering our coats until we again found the warm shelter of the car to motor further into the city's heart. The parking station at the MOCA surprised us by asking for our "easy-card", Taiwan's electronic chip held value card that we use on buses and trains and increasingly, for lots of small transactions just like this one. It's very handy. 

The exhibition itself, held within the beautiful red-brick Japanese designed and built museum was an uplifting and impressive array of all the best from Australia's current crop of cutting edge contemporary artists. There were a few artists and styles of work we recognized, one in particular (Joan Ross) did a similar video work for the "Curious Colony" collection at Newcastle Art Gallery when we were home June before last. There were electronic flowers that reacted as you approached, an eerily authentic lyre bird, electronic imaging beds that analysed your mood and an interactive art space to do your own work interpreting your experience. Morphing video of Taichi masters, giant electronic crickets in swarms on the walls and tiny peep holes with altered video tracks to disorientate and surprise, were just some of the treats for our senses. The best parts of all were the soundtracks of the bush and the wide, impossible blue skies that greeted us around every corner: we got a little homesick!

Very satisfied, both gastronomically and spiritually, we made it home in time to pick up our Papa Poulet chicken and take advantage of having the car (that very rare element in our day-to-day lives here) to transport lots of cat litter home in style, instead of the usual, which is me balancing a silly number of packs precariously on the scooter along the main road to home! A great weekend and we're re-charged to face the challenges of another working week...bring it on! 

P.S. photos are fairly self explanatory according to the text, but I did snap a couple of shots on my phone of the beautiful sunset on the way home last week. Also, apologies for all the hyper-links today, but the story seemed to call for them, and also apologies for the pattern I seem to have fallen into of writing this on a Monday afternoon. I do the photos on Sunday night, leave them as a draft, then come to the writing on Monday: seems to be working well for me at the moment so I might keep it going for the time being. I'm reading, "So Much For That" by the incomparable Lionel Shriver...she's awesome! Cass is re-reading everything she can get her hands on from the old bard (work related).

Cass had some real excitement through the week when she went to pick up her early birthday present from the perennial talisman (or as I like to call him, "The oily snake-oil salesman": no, not really!!), Joe the Jeweler. Sequestered in a tiny shopfront with some massively heavy hidden fortification in a thread of an alley down in the Japanese quarter, Joe has done some big business over the years with the bejeweled dolls of Tienmu and wider Taipei. Cass herself has done some pretty serious business with Joe over the years and his product is always superior and, according to Cass, right on the money. Maybe Cassy's idea of price and mine are slightly out of kilter: all I see are great wads of notes flowing from my hands straight into Joe's and only a few shiny trinkets are given in return. It just doesn't seem like a fair trade to me, but Cass always seems mighty pleased with the transactions, so perhaps I'm missing something! The words, "pilgrims" and "Indians" spring to mind, but I won't delve any deeper on that one! Suffice to say, she now has some more diamonds to adorn her fingers and she has some "in the pipeline" to be picked up after our return from Thailand.

We were both suffering from a cold this weekend after a week of spluttering kids and two days for cass at least of shaking hands with over 100 sets of parents. She endured her "stadium style" parent teacher interviews over the past few days, so it was no wonder she got a sore throat and little wonder that she icked up some lurgy. In my case, eight year olds are not famous for their hygeine and after the third or fourth time I was sneezed all over while helping the little charmers, I knew I was going to cop something bad!

We did struggle out against the germ-filled tide on Saturday afternoon and feasted on our favourite "Eat Burgers", before wandering across to SOGO and Wendel's to get some specialized supplies for the week. (By specialized, I'm referring to bread that tastes normal and isn't overloaded with a cup and a half of sugar and some plain yoghurt: Taipei's not completely normal just yet!) After that, we were both pretty exhausted so we drifted on home for some more lounge time.

Sunday, we didn't feel much better, but Cassy spent a vast majority of the day, tweaking and re-vamping her newly written Shakespeare unit for school. They've been tasked with an introductory unit of a smorgasbord of all things Shakespeare which is a pretty tough ask at Grade 8 level. She spent a lot of time on it yesterday and seems pretty satisfied that it will work well, so she feels it was time well spent. I watched a plethora of sport on TV: I was streaming the surfing final from Snapper Rocks, flicking across to the rugby league, then watched the cricket final with Sri Lanka. In between, my stir-crazy tendencies went into screaming overload so I took the scooter out for a bit of a ride-around. I went through some back streets in and around the surrounding suburbs and found all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies and discovered some potential new walking trails in the hills up behind the area between Beitou and Guandu.

I've finally finished that Stephen King book and it was a bit of a marathon but well worth it: a throwback to some of his early classics, with some plot gymnastics that had me totally flummoxed. Photos: Cassy snapping a fan of cash pre "Joe", Eat Burger, Buddha and blue truck, a crumbling house up behind Guandu, a crazy sign in Beitou central(!), scooter, lazy cats and a gelato affogato on a lazy Saturday afternoon...very European!