Footy fever is alive and well in Taipei as the Australia Network decided to show all the AFL finals from the weekend live. A group of us took advantage on Friday night to watch an extremely entertaining first final between Geelong and St. Kilda made even more interesting by an absolute flurry of text messages between Wal or me with Josh who is based in Singapore. Every bad decision, turning point and mishap was analyzed in 20 characters or less! We had a great time and it was a good start to the finals series. Even though the Knights won’t feature, I’m also looking forward to the NRL semis starting next week.

On Saturday night, we decided to go to a restaurant downtown that we haven’t tried but has very good reviews. Unfortunately, we were too late to book for a busy Saturday. Instead we managed to book in to Tienmu’s own fine dining establishment, Le Jardin, which we visited relatively recently for the Craw’s wedding party. It has moved from its old Chung Chen location and is now hidden away in the ground floor of an apartment building just off section 7. They have spared no expense on the décor and the general ambiance is one of luxuriant calm. It is a beautiful space with wood paneling, soft music and trickling water in pots scattered in the outdoor courtyard. We were even entertained by a tiny kitten while we waited for our first course. It played then slept, found its mother, suckled, nuzzled then cavorted some more. The food was just delectable: we both ended up having the exact same thing with a slab of salmon followed by chicken consommé. Then came the beef medallion and the most decadently rich chocolate cake/pudding you could imagine. All courses were artistically plated up (isn’t that what you’re supposed to say now in the Masterchef age?!) and served on fine china with sparkling cutlery.

Out to the beach today and though the sun had dipped behind a few clouds this morning to lower the temperature, it was always a false dawn of hope for cooler weather. However as we climbed up the back slopes of Yangminshan a not uncommon sight greeted us. Just in sight of the belching fumaroles an almost saturnine drape of cloud and drizzle slowly falls on the landscape. Cars slow down to a crawl as if we’ve entered an alien landscape and the pall of mist and rain follows us all the way down to the Jinshan plain. Once there though, the rain lifted, the sun again sat behind a cloud and we enjoyed a few hours of very pleasant temperatures.

Cass has nominated “Jinshan number 2” as her favourite beach. It has a cliff top panoramic viewing point with some conveniently placed boulders for sitting and viewing. She took her latest Australian House and Garden magazine, armed herself with the camera and warned me she’d just take a few early on before settling into her reading material. I had a great time out in the water. It was a luke warm bath and hardly refreshing, but the surf was powerfully churning up a wafer thin bank and providing some fast hollow little waves if you dared. All my surf gear was loaded down with sand by the time I got out, and although a bit exhausting it was lots of fun. Cass got us some refreshments from the nearest convenience store and was stoked to find a “zero” version of Sarsaparilla. The weirdest thing here is that the only low cal soft drink available is Diet Coke (up till now at least). I suppose the local default body doesn’t really worry about sugared soft drinks: Taiwanese people are envy producing svelte!

Great trip home again, but a bit funny as I’d forgotten to bring some dry shorts. I drove home in my undies, asked Cass to throw some shorts off the balcony, which I subsequently retrieved, donned, then drove up to school to garage the car and scooter home! I l left the camera at school this weekend, so what we have above is from Cassy’s school file (her team pic this year) and some she took with our old camera today at the beach. I’m being very slow on my Connelly, but Cass has moved on to The Elegance of the Hedgehog which she reports as alternating philosophical viewpoints from characters…translated from the French.

Nestled in a river valley near the foothills to the south of bustling inner city Taipei lies a sleepy, quirky little town bypassed by the second half of the 20th century. Sanxia was once a hub for farm produce from this rich agricultural area, but trucks and freeways have left it to fade slowly from its former glories. Unlike many places in Taiwan, however, it means that its “Old Street” has survived the rush to modernization and is now restored and celebrated as a genuine and unique tourist attraction to curious Taipei day-trippers. We were two of those on Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed a little trip back in time to Japanese days of occupation and simple country living.

Sanxia, Yingge and Wulai are all in this general area and each has its own wow factor. Yingge’s pottery, Wulai’s hot springs and waterfalls and Sanxia’s famous temple and restored old buildings, allowing you to stroll a long street looking much as it would have centuries ago. “They” have done a meticulous job on the buildings and pavements: even the stormwater drains are intricately sculpted and individualized! The old facades have been restored or rebuilt and there is a wide variety of products and artisans on display. We saw old ice making and carving techniques, glass blowing and painting, beautiful traditional clothing and wooden ornaments. We wandered the street for a couple of hours, enjoying all the sights it had to offer.

One building housed a small art gallery which was displaying a young artist’s work of excellent quality: we’re quite regretting not buying something from there. The space itself was so beautiful and had been decorated so carefully. Old trunks and records were placed around the rooms, a Japanese room had been set up and period telephones and objet d’art were scattered pleasingly throughout to create a peaceful authentic air. The other incredible place was the Taiwan master wood carving shop. Here, panels had been carved from solid blocks with inconceivable skill. One piece even had tiny wooden ants crawling over pieces of wood: the intricacy had to be seen to be believed, their legs not only individually carved, but articulated!

It was a long day, but very enjoyable. We found some parking nearby and walked in, getting some coffee and a sandwich to fortify us on the way in. As we made our way to the old streets we saw some energetic Christians dancing and singing on a stage. I was praying that the lord didn’t come down and snatch one or two of the faithful right there and then: the heat just walking was bad enough, but extremely energetic dancing in that heat was really unadvisable! Similarly, at the other end of our day, we ventured onto one of the main town bridges which was lined with stalls to celebrate “Sanxia farm produce festival” selling various farm products, many of unidentifiable nature. At the end of the bridge was yet another stage with a captive audience clapping a whole stack of local dignitaries as they were singled out for a bow. The weirdest thing was a young man who decided to make his way to the back of the stage wearing just a pair of skimpy “budgie smugglers”: surely Tony Abbott’s influence hasn’t spread this far?!

On the way home, we dropped into the new SOGO and the incomparable Din Tai Fung for dinner. We had to wait in line for about 10 minutes, but the short wait always repays itself when we start feasting on those xiaolongbaos. If you don’t know it, check out this review of the Sydney branch…it’s one of Taiwan’s best exports we reckon.

The weekend started for me with Gurecki shouting us at the “big brother” with their famous table tapper beers. It was my birthday present, but I hadn’t called in the coupon till then. We had good fun and also through the week, Cass and I went around to visit tiny new born Seth and parents. He was cute, and as his two older sisters got into a screaming fit that didn’t seem to be solvable, I ended up nursing him for ages as Mum sorted out the disagreement!

Another hot week coming up, so no relief in sight just yet.

Extreme heat this weekend has once again restricted our activities, but I did attend the board party on Friday night. It's a little bit of Groundhog Day each year, with many of the same faces and a few wide eyed newcomers still reeling from their first full week at work in the TAS juggernaut. It's a collective sigh of relief and quite a relaxed and couth atmosphere to have a few well chosen beverages and some fine food. Back to the American Club this year after a couple at the Grand Hotel (no idea why), it was a good show poolside and tended to group the crowd a little more closely, which was perhaps the intention. As usual, I didn't get to talk to a great many people, but as for the ones I did talk to, I enjoyed their company and stories: there are always a couple of doozies come out of the collective "summer" holiday!

Gurecki, Wal and I had a few pre-party beers at Wendel's where we were disappointed not to see the Craw, who was going to come, but got the message too late. He's a friend of ours who should be starting his new job in Florence about now, but has had some frustrating delays, around visas etc. He's due to leave today though. After Wal and I also met up with a few others and had some post party beers at the "new" Pig and Whistle as well, I was decidedly unimaginative in my choices for exercise/entertainment on Saturday! The bar is curiously named some rather long number, something like 8898 or something similar. The irony is that is almost exactly the same interior and exterior as it ever was....weird! When we walked in, all the same people who used to prop up the bar were there as well, with a smattering of the Green Bar boys who I suspect were just checking out the "new" facilities next door. We were joined by Bill from middle school, the new smallish Aqua Boy and the opposite in size and volume, big Ray, who is a larger than life, quite hilarious fellow doing some subbing at the school.

Cass demurred on the chance of the board party: not her scene at all and I think she was more excited about getting home, watching some trashy TV, eating a meal I wouldn't necessarily enjoy and having two spoilt cats lie with her on the lounge in the airconditioning. She and I were both quite exhausted after the first week: we often wonder how we sustain our effort over the year, but we must get "fitter" for it I reckon as the semester rolls on.

We went over to the Neihu Miramar today and watched the film Salt, partly on the recommendation of ABC's David and Margaret, and partly because the time suited! It was a real rollercoaster ride and if you could suspend disbelief over large portions of the action, it was slick and almost believable. Great fun. Afterwards we walked around the baby floor looking for a present for Katie, as she and Shaun have just had their third child, a boy named Seth. Frustrated with all the product, we eventually opted to bypass the baby present and get something for the person who did all the hard work and got Katie some French hand and body cream: a much more sensible solution we thought! We had a late lunch at Gillies to extend our French theme and it was as good as we remembered. Cass got the fish which is unusual for her, and reported it to be delicious. My german sausages were also great.

Our new PVR which works with the set top box has been working overtime too this weekend and recorded the Knights game for us in the wee small hours of Saturday morning as well as the Wets/ Parra game when we were out this morning. A smashing thrashing of the Broncos by the Knights was highly entertaining but also a bit frustrating: they can't make the semis now, but what might they have achieved in this form?

We bought two new helmets for the aging scooter today as ours were finally getting a little "on the nose" after 8 years. They were freebies when we bought the bike second hand all those years ago, so we've done pretty well. For the princely sum of $20, we got two new helmets, reasonably cool and certainly a lot less smelly!
That's it! Photos, just two are Cass at Gillies and me outside with one of Taiwan's quirky cuteness things...Disney characters bolted to number-plates! Cass is reading the infamous Swedish tome, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" while I'm still on Connelly.

It’s quite amazing what a break away from something can do to confidence levels. With a lot of skills, usually a time away from practice leads to an erosion of ability and confidence, but I’ve often found with languages that it has the opposite effect. The fact is that I probably just forgot how very rudimentary my “skills” really were: but emboldened by a holiday away from Mandarin, I tried that most frightening task of all, the phone conversation! Pretty much without thinking, I rang our local Thai restaurant on a Saturday, hoping for an English speaker. My initial enquiry fell on Chinese ears only so I launched in to a day and time, number of people etc. I needed to change the time to a more suitable one as they were full, agree to a second floor table and tell them how many people were coming before leaving my phone number for confirmation. What an affirming experience: I’m just about to tee up some lessons again for the new year on the back of that confidence booster, after a few months off for a “rest”.

That small triumph followed a day of horror, however! The car’s battery was dead flat and after arranging a mate to help me jump start it I drove it around for an hour before taking the car for its bi-yearly inspection for which it was late. The guy told me I had to pay a fine first, so I was shunted out of line to a holding bay, went and paid and came back. The car wouldn’t start! A friendly punter nearby drove over close so I could use the jumper leads, and then I went back to Tienmu to get a new battery. Fixed, I went back to the inspection, but this time my insurance card was incorrect. More parking, walking down the road to get that renewed, then back round a big block to try again. The guy in the inspection booth viewed me with great trepidation, but after seeing my up-to-date paperwork, we both had a great laugh at my expense and I was on my way. No doubt he’ll be dining out on the “idiotic foreigner” story for years to come!

Work has been a flurry of usual back-to-school activity. Cass was greeted with a couple of bombshells, which she somehow managed to take in her stride, including that as of next year, her Humanities role will become either English or Social Studies. It’s an easy decision for her to make with her extensive English lit training, but it will entail a lot of changes, including perhaps to her teaching partners. She has also found the heat confronting (as have I), with her shoes uncomfortable and our walk to and from school in the cloying heat very annoying sweat-wise!

I have our Open House on Thursday which will entail me reading at least three of the PowerPoint slides in Japanese. These slides have always been translated into Chinese and Korean, but this year we’re trying the Japanese as well. I also need to extrapolate on one of the main points, so I’m frantically polishing my very rusty skills in that language as well! I need to say just that in my short introduction, but also take care to be appropriately formal for such an occasion. So, life is never dull!

As is tradition, the board is hosting the faculty to a stat of year party at the American Club this Friday. This tends to be a rather lavish affair, fully catered with the finest of food and drink and a good opportunity to catch up with all the people you haven’t run across in a corridor here and there around the school after the big break. So, as usual, we’ve hit the ground running at a thousand miles an hour and won’t draw breath for a good stretch yet.

Photos: at lunch in the Italian restaurant in SOGO, Cass outside another restaurant with beautiful bonsai, and Virg takes an unhealthy fascination in licking my newly shaved dome! Books: Cass reading The Other and Dave moving to another Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer

I was struck by some kind of epiphany on Tuesday night as I flew down Chung Shan Road on the scooter, shirt and sweat flying, dodging cars and obstacles at breakneck speed, on a mission to get us some breakfast goods for the following morning. We really do lead two diametrically opposed lives. I was recalling not 24 hours earlier yelling myself hoarse in the wind and cold as the Knights thrashed Manly, the happy faithful vocal, rugged up and 14,000 strong: I reckon there were that many people I passed in just 4 blocks down to the bread shop!

Please forgive my rusty literary skills as we’re just back from a two month break back home in Newcastle, barely breaking an intellectual sweat and certainly not telling a tale. Our visit was, as always, bitter sweet with time just not long enough to reconnect properly with family and friends, let alone our lifestyle with which we’re becoming increasingly unfamiliar. We were constantly perplexed for weeks at little things that we know all about but had chosen or happened to forget. “Perhaps it’s just old age creeping up!” “ Why is this happening?” “ Doesn’t the garbage come tonight? Oh no, that’s back ‘home’.” I even decided to whizz down to Wendell’s to buy a cake at one point: that was always going to prove a hard task, especially as it’s in Tienmu.

However, apart from our slight emotional frailty and generally discombobulating thought processes, we had a great time. We had lots of quality time with our parents, dining out and visiting galleries and attending parties, but all of course as a backdrop to some good chat sessions. It’s always the highlight of our journey home. Our dear old friends who’ve stuck by us despite our paltry efforts to stay in touch were once again forgiving and delightful. We had a few special times connecting with our nieces and nephews and my sisters and brothers-in-law. Two especially memorable occasions occurred drinking copious amounts of alcohol at various sister’s houses and talking all sorts of old nonsense: perhaps I’m an evil influence! Our delightful, rapidly growing up nieces spent a few days with us and that was a joy, however Cass and I both felt the need for a little rest after they’d returned home: we’re hopeless wimps where any type of ‘in loco parenting’ needs to happen!

Our annual bike trip followed the much vaunted “Tablelands Way”, a road that seems to have been made specifically for a cruising motorcycle. Potential catastrophe struck when our electrical systems started shutting down in the middle of nowhere, but the boys form the bike shop in Bathurst came and rescued us with their truck and trailer. An enforced night then back on the bike: just 200 kilometres down the road, again in the middle of nowhere and the middle of NSW’s coldest snap in 60 years, the same thing happened! We limped into Goulburn and a knowledgeable local bike mechanic identified the prob: a burnt out “stator”, part needing to be shipped from Sydney. Long story slightly shorter, we eventually spent some days in Canberra and just loved our national capital: what better salve than a dose of Aussie national pride at every turn to lift our spirits? The national galleries, the national library, the war memorial, Parliament House all were quite wondrous, but the museum for democracy (old parliament house) was fantastic. Wandering around in the press gallery, the house of reps and the prime minister’s suite, just as they were left was a great experience.

I’m going to try to be slightly less verbose this year, partly to protect my own sanity on a Sunday night and partly to implement some of the things I tell my third graders, namely, stick to a main idea and don’t waffle!! Slide show tells the story in pictures, and stills are just a selection. I’ll try to get into the swing of things a little better next week: wish Cass and me luck as we embark on our first week of meetings and kids (they start on Thursday) and deal with this 36 degree heat: it’s enervating! Cass is reading Home, which she comments is profoundly sad. I'm reading The Brass Verdict: it's fun!

It's got to that time of year again where I'm about to have a little break. We've got five days of work left then we'll be jetting off home again for a couple of months. Friday afternoon will be hectic as we have to stay at school for a recognition ceremony, get home and get all those little loose ends tied up before our driver arrives at 5 pm. We've got another stack of frequent flier points which this time we've used to upgrade to business class for the two long hauls this week and again coming back in early August: luxury in the brand new flat bed Cathay Pacific business...we'll try not to get used to it!

Through the week we had the weirdest morning. Two giant blue birds with a cavalier degree of aggressiveness carried on with squawking shrieks at a very loud volume most of the morning, frightening the cats (the wimps!) and annoying us as we were getting ready to go to work. They eventually settled down a bit but Cass had a most bizarre incident in our lane on the way to work (I was riding the scooter due to my dentist's appointment later) A local street cat pounced like lightning on a myna bird right in front of her and carried the squirming prize into an underground garage. She was just getting over this shock when one of these huge strange griffins swooped down from the overhead wires into the same garage, seemingly to rescue his "brother" from the jaws of the cat!! Cass heard all sorts of noises but wisely didn't hang around to investigate!

The lower school party was on last Friday night up at the traditional haunt of Shann Garden. It was a good night, Gurecki, Lewy and I having a few beers first for the last time at big brother bar at Qiyan (last time for Lewy at least). It went on and on and Wal, and I managed to last and last at a great sequence of bars and pubs. Suffice to say that we needed a big sleep in on Saturday morning!

Today was dreary with rain, but we went out for Cass to spend some gift vouchers up at the Eslite bookstore. She found a couple that matched her vouchers exactly that she needs for book club next year. It was good timing as they only picked the books on Friday night at their last meeting of the year. They went to a Japanese restaurant in a hotel over at Neihu and they all enjoyed the food and ambiance. No doubt we'll be returning there at some stage come the new academic year!

I'm loading my e-reader with books for bringing home, and Cass plans to get to the library soonest. Gurecki and I had yet another article published in the school magazine last week, with yet another pending for first edition next year. The unpublished one is all about e-reading as we are both converts. I'll post a link when I have one. Photos: a few shots Lewy took of our night up at the Mexican restaurant in Damshui for Gurecki's birthday, one of the giant attack birds and Cass in the rain today!

 

I enjoyed the dubious delights of the great outdoors on Thursday and Friday when I attended (for the 9th year in a row I might add!) the Grade 3 camp. A far cry from the bad old days, the unimaginatively named Camp Taiwan has counselors to help run the activities, food which is plentiful and bordering on gourmet and accommodation which while still “under canvas”, certainly negates the camping experience a lot by being under double layers, built on a wooden platform and having rough bunks with foam mattresses….luxury! It nestles in a high valley, a long steep winding road above the coastal village of Wanli on the northern tip of the country. The freeway landslide still has not been resolved so we had a tedious trip out there on the number 1 freeway and some back-tracking through the foothills. The bad old days I refer to had us inviting parents to help, where they were more useless than kids, ferrying great loads of food up the mountain and then cooking and preparing it, as well as living in stinking cramped ant infested rotting cabins…do you get the vibe I’m in?!

The surf has been quite pathetic this week, barely lapping on the shore of the east coast, so it hasn’t been an option. While it might have whipped up a little this morning, the annoying squally wind and rain would have made the trip and the end destination unappealing.

I came home and saw Cass for a while on Friday evening and we watched the Knights capitulate again in the last 10 minutes of their game against the West Tigers: they look the goods for such a long time every week only to fall at the final hurdle. I had agreed to go up to Lewy’s to watch the blockbuster AFL game on Friday night so made it there about 8.30. We had a good time, drank some beers and the group of us enjoyed one of our last get-togethers before another one of our “brethren” flies away to location exotic (in this case, another one to Singapore). We’ll have a night out at the lower school party at Shann Garden next Friday and that could well be it. Oh no, Craw’s and Kenny’s band, QvQ will play downtown on the last Wednesday and we all plan to go to that.

Speaking of the Craw, we attended the wedding reception of Andrew and Sophie this afternoon at the newly re-located French restaurant, Le Jardin, in Tienmu. Craw is a big tall Aussie boy who is an articulate quiet intelligent member of my book club. Sophie is the long term personal assistant to the superintendent. They are both delightful so we couldn’t be happier for them. We gave them an interesting gift of, along with some cash, the three essential guide books we took to Italy with us, which proved to be real winners. We included a card decorated with a hand drawn picture of a church in Florence that we bought there. Guess where they are heading next year? Right, Florence it is! The afternoon was very sophisticated and lovely: the restaurant was just the spot for the smart casual do: they had married, just the two of them, through the week at a registry office and just had 40 or so close friends join them for a quiet celebration this afternoon. Earlier, we were due to set off in the teeming rain but I ventured up to the main road to hail a cab, then directed it around to our front door to pick up “Princess Cassy” resplendent in beautiful silk and delicate Italian shoes!

So with a degree of sadness hanging about us this week with the impending departure of yet more good friends, we’re keeping busy writing reports and doing all that other end-of-year madness that no matter how well you prepare yourself, always seems to creep up and bite you hard late in the peace! Photos today are of Cassy visiting her friend, Kristin’s, two very new and tiny kittens through the week, a shot of my book club mates Gurecki and Grande, Cass with Karen and Paige, each with their short grey “dos”, and me with my surfing mate Dan who is pulling a very strange face!

Cass is reading The View From Castle Rock and I'm reading the Chinese dictionary (on occasions!)

Cass has had one of her busiest times of the year this week when the middle school play eventually got into full swing. Starting with a few previews on Monday it’s been action stations all week. She really has the system down to a fine art now though: although still taxing and draining, Cass has honed the practices of her team of girls and her supply line buying down to a really efficient production. After all these years, she’s seen it all and can anticipate any problems beforehand. One of the big problems this year was the sweatbox conditions in the small makeup room. Filled to capacity with excited, emotionally charged “stars” as well as the crew and with a rapidly approaching Taiwanese summer, it gets very hot, very quickly. Trouble is apparently, that the air-conditioned makes too much noise! Something that needs to be fixed for next year!

Cass arrives home exhausted from the shows, so we’ve been pretty low key this weekend. In a precursor to the weekend, I drove a group of boys up to Danshui on Thursday night to celebrate Gurecki’s birthday. He was keen to eat some good Mexican food, and the best we’ve found is all the way up at the river mouth where Eddie’s Cantina is. We had a great time on the way up and back, a number of the crew surprised at the quality of the car as they hadn’t seen it. They even commented how “adult” it was being driven in a nice vehicle: we’ve become so used to zooming around on scooters or catching cabs here! Anyway, the food was indeed great, the company raucous and entertaining and Lewy, me, Wal and Gurecki had a great night all round.

There was a big golf challenge to be held today, where representatives of each school division were to battle it out in a bragging rights tournament. As a pre-cursor, Wal set up a discussion of tactics/slanging match round of pre-drinks at Diamond Tony’s on Friday night. It’s so expensive there, we were reminded why we don’t visit that often, but it was fun to see the teams going at it. I wonder how that all turned out today?
I made a spur of the moment decision as Cass was walking out the door for the final matinee today, to make a dash for the coast. She anticipated she’d be away about 5 hours, so I thought that sounds about right for a trip out to the surf and back. When I arrived, the surf was a not altogether inspiring 2-3 feet with a slight onshore wind. The beach was deserted however, so I thought I’d make the most of a lack of a crowd and get amongst it. I got a few waves, but had ten times as much fun when I ditched the board and had a good old fashioned body bash. I was just reveling in the easy glide and power of the waves and the refreshing zest to the water: it’s just magically restorative to have a good surf!

On the way to Jinshan today I was taking more particular notice of the landscape and what was making its mark upon it. A sweat of cyclists jostled their way up the steep narrow roads and avoidance action was necessary quite often to avoid these garishly coloured, licra-bathed mini pelotons as they whir away up at walking pace and then glide down at an astonishing speed, almost as if all that pent up frustration as they grinded their way to the top is released with abandon on the way down and down.

I know it’s nearly time to go home for the break when that very Chinese phenomenon, the rice harvest, is imminent. I noted again how really beautiful the paddies are. It’s almost like a giant has left his lunch strewn on the terraced hills; big, plump, startlingly green sandwiches bursting with filling and fresh enough to eat. The colour is so vivid it’s almost artificial. It’s a good match for Yangminshan’s Calla lilies of which I bought a dozen on the way back. They have impossibly long succulent green stems which gradually transform to a cupped white flower: it’s always quite hilarious juggling them on the scooter on the way home, occasionally obscuring vision and threatening to throw themselves off at any moment.

At least four dozen birdwatchers had descended upon a patch of road on the lower slopes, lining both sides of the road with their gaping lenses trained on the elusive bird, not only they, but their cameras swathed in jungle camouflage material, tripods in rows like alien creatures from “War of the Worlds.” In fact, the sight of onlookers gawking at the assembled throng of ornithologists was another attraction all on its own…it was quite comical as the numbers swelled so the road was choked down to just one lane!

No photos yet as the camera is at school and I’m waiting on Lewy to supply me with a few from the other night. Check again tomorrow/Tuesday. Now, got some Calla lilies, me doing a science experiment in class and some of my readers
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Cass has been at the middle school play this weekend as her yearly commitment starts to really ramp up. The dress rehearsal early yesterday morning is a pre-cursor to a preview on Monday morning (in her preparation time for class) and the main event next Friday, Saturday and Sunday. She went down to the Watson’s treasure trove through the week and loaded up with all sorts of makeup ready for her team to decorate the brace of actors who’ll perform. She has a pretty good crew of seventh and eighth graders who know what they’re doing which is a bonus, but she did have some issues with the lack of air conditioning in their stifling little makeup room: apart from anything else the stuff just runs straight off their faces: apparently the air conditioning makes too much noise(!)

We went out to dinner at Din Tai Feng earlier in the week with Leon and Nicole and had a really enjoyable time. We managed to get a few orders mixed up, but that kind of added to the fun and we had a great chat. Nicole is a really lovely young woman: Leon has definitely done very well for himself. We’d lent them the scooter for the week and I think it was already paying dividends: there are just too many places to go that are off the main MRT/bus routes. Leon’s local knowledge has helped a lot too: although there are bigger and glitzier shops, stores and restaurants, he reckons the basic Taipei is still there pretty much the same.
Wal was away on camp (I have that dubious honour in a couple of week’s time: uggh!)this week so I had a relatively  quiet time at work in the latter part of the week. Cass and I are both in that weird time as the end-of-year flurry approaches where we’re pretty much just in a bit of limbo waiting for the frenetic stuff to arrive. I handed out my ESL letters to the kids on Friday, but I have reports to write soon.

Friday night was a farewell for Lewy and Alison along with Yama and Parker who are all off to greener pastures. Yama is off to Doha, L&A off to Singapore as already mentioned and Shane has finally had enough and is heading back to Tasmania. It was a pretty good night all round and was at the Sommelier wine bar tucked under the supermarket on Tien Yu street.

Cass and I went for a big walk along the canal today, arriving home a bit sweaty due to the good pace we set, even thought the temperature had dropped a little today. It was frustrating to see the Knights go down to the Titans in a very close game today….especially as we knew Chris and Val would be sitting there on such a magnificent day nearly topping off Mothers’ Day with a win. Cass had spoken to them on the phone just as they were leaving. I tried to ring my mum today but she was out, but I do know that she received the flowers we sent yesterday, which was great (Belflora, Broadmeadow, shame on you for not having a Mothers’ Day delivery option!)

I went to a very flash dental clinic downtown to get some more work down on my problematic tooth. The opulent lounges in the waiting room and the 10 minute consultation with the fluent English speaking dentist didn’t fill my heart with glee: all I could do was imagine how much it was going to cost! A lot for Taiwan but only a conservative 25% of what it would cost back home, so…..My dentist, Dr. Hsu, was something else: she almost gave me too much information and her regular updates, while meant to be soothing, did little to calm me down! Anyway, I’ll be back for a couple more visits to the Ren Ai road super clinic before this little saga comes to a conclusion.

Leon and Nicole dropped the scooter back in this afternoon and we had another chat: it seems they’ve really enjoyed the week and the scooter was liberating so we’re glad we could make their experience a little better. It will be good to see them again in the New Year when Leon hopes to bring his young son up here to visit his country of birth. Photos: are still in the camera at school, so I’ll post them tomorrow!At Din Tai Feng with Leon and Nicole, with my student Anna and the famous monkey, Chee Chee.