Cassy's monthly book club dinner was held at the impressive and perennially fully booked "Osteria by Angie" over in the Dahzi region near the Neihu mega-complex. The rain pelted down as she made her way up to the school meeting point to be driven over by Darby with the group, and continued to beat a steady rhythm as they dined and then eventually left. It was a fitting sad and dreary metaphor for their feelings, as Stacey, their newest recruit a few years back, was attending her last meeting with them. She is embarking on a brand new adventure with husband and newish baby, as they move to Switzerland next month for a new posting. She is their only non-school member and they loved having her different perspective and fresh ideas to give them an alternative view on literature and life!

We took the advantage of getting a photo as I was slightly dolled up for parent conferences on Friday (Cass always looks this good!). We're given two full school days to schedule conferences with parents to discuss students' progress, a far cry from the days at Grammar when we used to drag ourselves in for a full evening or two after a hard day's work. The parents are, almost without exception, so delightful, caring and respectful. They appreciate our efforts and tell us so. If there are concerns, they listen; then we plan a framework for remediation together, with only the best interests of the student/child at heart. It's a tiring couple of days, but it can be quite satisfying as well!

We whizzed around patisseries and supermarkets on Saturday to get the weekly supplies and got some takeaway for dinner. We danced and leaped around the lounge-room in the early afternoon as the Newcastle Knights registered their first win in nearly a year, and in just the second round of the new competition! What an exciting time! I'd donned my 10 year anniversary Knight's jumper to watch the first game, so after changing jerseys to the special edition jumper of 2009, I'm actually laying claim to this win. I'll wear it again next week and you can see whether it actually works, or not.

We watched two movies on the weekend: "Jackie" was a poignant character study of an often misunderstood woman, and Natalie Portman did a superb job in the title role. It was fairly slow moving and elegantly wrought; also, I suppose, not dissimilar to Jackie herself! The Australian/U.S. co-production of "Lion" was just so beautifully imagined. At times, joyous and funny and at others so heart-wrenching and sad. What an amazing story....the truth can be stranger than fiction. Teeming crowds, dirt, crime and chaos in the cities along with simple lives of poverty in village slums were starkly juxtaposed with the "lucky country's" big suburban blocks, clear waters and abundance of just about everything.

We hummed and haaed, then eventually made the decision to challenge ourselves once again on the 1,500 steps of the Tienmu Gudao. Scootering up through the bus circle at section seven, then upwards to the little carpark at "base camp" of the steps was a delight in the shining spring light. We powered up the first section and starting working up quite a sweat, passing all and sundry, many of whom, in a slightly annoying fashion(!), were standing and resting in most awkward positions blocking the path upward!

We nearly staggered over a blissfully sleeping cat on the steep corkscrew section 3/4 of the way up, it seemingly oblivious to the possibility of being torn limb from limb by some wandering Macaque. The monkeys cross the steps in this very spot, so the cat was either brave or stupid! When we reached the summit of the climb we wandered the whole length of the ridge-line trail, eventually resting on a bench where we watched a couple of beautifully camouflaged lizards kiss and freeze!

The three evenings and two days of the weekend were a blissful release from a rather hectic week: the sun shone, the breeze whispered, various screens flickered and entertained, and our food was ample and delicious. We're lucky to have our lives. Photos: in Dave's classroom, shots from the steps, book club.

"...of droughts and flooding rains" can equally apply to Taiwan as Australia these days! Hard baked grounds and looming water restrictions have been alleviated by some biblical dumps of rain overnight, to add to the regular showers we've been having for the past week or so. Despite it being awkward to negotiate, especially on our daily walking commute to school, it's good to know that the spectre of water shortages has disappeared, for now at least.

The first flush of spring is also in evidence in the parks and gardens around the city. Tiny blossoms are bursting from buds on the apricot and cherry blossom trees lining the riverside walks and dotting the local parks. Photographers snap these minuscule puffs of powdery beauty with gigantic DSLR lenses, prowling and circling the trees to find just the right angle for their shot. As we wandered through the park to do the food shopping, the older, park-loitering gentlemen seem to be slightly more subdued as the regular mahjong games take place beneath the burgeoning blossoms: the regular rowdy exclaims are muted, and the constant clack of tiles is the only sound to disturb the pretty petals.

We don't often make the trek down to Shilin on foot, but decided to do just that on a delightful Sunday afternoon. Eschewing the practicalities of the MRT and the scooter, we decided to take advantage of the glorious sunshine and mild temperatures to enjoy a slice of the neighborhood's ambiance. We weren't the only ones! There were gaggles of schoolgirls giggling their way to noodle houses, and throngs of people buzzing in and out of the Jishan MRT station when we passed. Kiddies were riding their mini-scooters along the tiled promenades of the station, screaming with delight. There were groups of oldies sharing a meal at the tables in the 7/11 and couples and families You-biking all over the place: along pathways, footpaths and bridges, while people danced and played on the river banks as traffic whizzed above them.

There was a large bank of electric battery pods for scooters to make use of in the spacious scooter park under the MRT. These scooters are reasonably popular in Taiwan, but haven't really taken off for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there is no subsidy, so subsequently they are dearer than petrol-powered ones and secondly, they are so deathly quiet that people step in front of them causing accidents on a regular basis! Even so, this battery exchange system is a forward thinking service.

We were shocked to see even more development across the river towards the Shilin district: how much more growth can this city sustain?! One slick looking building was clad in bright orange tiles, however: Cass commented that those things would really date! We took a few backstreets closer to our destination and spied all sorts of interesting tea houses and dessert bars in the shadows of the overhead railway tracks in the approach to Shilin station...maybe another time!

Burger Ray's has an interesting ordering system. There is a window facing the footpath where you order your food, and after ordering and payment, you're given a drink cup and ushered inside. Once in, you can find a space among the shared long tables or by the long bar on one wall, help yourself to a drink, then wait till your order is called. The custom hamburgers arrive in a metal basket with the top bun displaced and then you can load up your burger with various salad options and sauces from the shared salad bar. The outside ordering obviously attracts a crowd, and the inside loading of toppings allows you to personalize your meal: both very clever ideas!

We enjoyed the usual excellent food and the decor and vibe: there are a lot of young people who go there and the music, the pulse and the energy all feel quite uplifting. Afterwards, we re-traced our steps, pausing on the bridge to spy a group of "Moops", who were alternatively quite happily extracting long, juicy worms from the soil to gobble or posing in a familiar statuesque stillness by the water's edge! We passed a funny little dumpling museum which we'd never seen before with examples of ubiquitous cute creatures representing the product. As we wandered, we also passed a joinery shop shut for the weekend, but with a lethal looking bench-saw exposed for any passer-by to rip themselves to shreds on if they so desired: imagine the "OH and S" issues back in Australia!!


Photos: Blossoms budding and shopping bags being transported back through the park. The remainder are sights from our Shilin stroll.

There's a constant and ongoing threat from mainland China to Taiwan's interests as life plays out here on our small island, just 150 km from the Chinese coast. Rumours of up to 2,000 missiles lined up on the Chinese coast aimed straight at strategic targets in Taiwan abound, and confirmation exists that there are close to 1,000. The latest technology has also been employed, seemingly, to further tighten threatening screws.

Not to be outdone in the apocalyptic scenarios, Taiwan's own natural depths have recently been discovered to contain a massive magma chamber of enormous size, nestled and boiling away just a few kilometres below the surface, and directly below our suburb, Tienmu!  We've been well aware of simmering volcanic activity in the area, as the lily fields in Yangminshan National Park rest in the bosom of a gigantic volcanic crater from centuries past. The famous fumaroles continue to belch boiling plumes of gas and spit jets of scalding, sulfuric liquid all over the off side of one of the main peaks: this has been a constant since we've been here. Tatun volcano itself, however, has always been classified as dormant. The aforelinked article seems to point to a much more imminent eruption and catastrophic results for our area....let's hope we get plenty of warning!

On a much lighter note, and conveniently forgetting all these "end of world" scenarios, we enjoyed a most relaxing weekend! Cass had her two grueling parent conference days on Thursday and Friday, so she and Kristin made use of Kristin's rare free Friday evening to have a relaxing catch-up at Sonnentor, one of their favourite restaurants in the foothills of section 7. They had a chance to discuss all manner of things important to the world.

The weather had definitely taken another turn for the wintery in the latter part of the week and the weekend days were no different. I'd been trying to catch bits and pieces of the first Australia/India test match on Thursday and Friday and was really keen to see more on Saturday, especially as the Aussies were performing so well. To our amazement and delight, the Australians absolutely routed the Indian defense and won the match quite comprehensively in just three days! They had not won a match in India since 2004, so it was an outstanding achievement. In between times, we snuck out in the dribbling rain to get some bread for the week from Wendel's and some authentic Italian pizza for our dinner from the amazing Pizza Oggi. We got home a little damp, but pleased that we'd managed to get out for a bit of a promenade!

We visited the Shinkong Mitsukoshi complex to see "Silence" on Sunday afternoon. Scorsese's latest epic was of particular interest to us for a number of reasons. Set in the late 1500s, it deals with the underground group of Christians secretly practicing in Japanese villages and the few Jesuit priests who covertly arrive and minister to them. They suffer the most severe reprisals from the Japanese authorities. It is set in and around modern day Nagasaki, the place I most often visit in Japan. The second peculiarity about this film is that it was shot entirely in Taiwan! The rugged coastlines on the untamed sections of the east and west coasts of the island were perfect facsimiles for ancient Japanese coastlines. We recognized the general areas, with black sand beaches and cliffs soaring skyward, straight from the rocky shorelines. This island is certainly a spectacular beauty, notably highlighted in Scorsese's direction and cinematography. It was alternatively quite dour with a paucity of dialogue and action, then a violent assault. Scenes stretched interminably at times or displayed violence so shocking and unexpected as to shake the sensibilities of even the most hardened movie-goer. After three hours we were emotionally drained, but we both rated the overall experience quite highly.

After a rather bracing tour back home on Blackie the scooter, we were content to turn our heating air-con on, sit back and enjoy a pleasant Sunday evening of home-cooked spaghetti, TV and ugg boots. I didn't take any photos this week, hence the "official" shots above!

It was a fillip for the soul when the sun decided to stream some of her golden strength down on her subjects after an interminable time. Her previously generous reign had become so insipid that the peasants were almost revolting! A long cold spell was finally snapped on the weekend with glorious weather of sparse cloud cover and beaming sun; her abdication obviously just a scandalous rumour: long live Queen Soleil!

A lunch al fresco beckoned us down to Wendel's Backerie to take advantage of the sensational weather in their spacious outdoor area to consume great food in a relaxed setting. We snared a lovely spot on the main verandah and both ordered Caesar salads, mine with grilled chicken and Cassy's with warm bites of salmon. Some fried Brie with cranberry sauce for accompaniment and we had a soporific time before motoring over to Shinkong Mitsukoshi and the Wovie cinema.

"Manchester By The Sea" was a wrenching, beautifully photographed and imagined film. The actors were sublime in their respective roles, especially Affleck and Williams as the tragically split partners. The metaphors of cold, and water, and abandonment, unfolded subtly through the script and settings, and scenes were allowed to play out with significant silent periods, all of which just added atmospheric overtones to the recurring analogies.

Expecting the weather to default back to normal the next day, we were delighted to wake up to yet another dreamy day. A lazy breakfast watching the returned "Insiders", a quick shopping run through the park and across the river, before we were set for another adventure. Double Square Gallery in Dahzi (in the general Neihu precinct) was our destination. The scooter ride there is always an event in itself. Weaving through the weekend drivers, always expecting and often confirming that they will do the most ridiculous and bizarre driving behaviours in front of us and to all sides, we navigated our way beside the river villages through to the Dahzi tunnel. From here, it's a flat out roar, as we're jettisoned through the tunnel to emerge in a whole different world on the other side.

Dazhi/Neihu has become an oversized organism of concrete and steel and gaudy opulence. It's still a work in progress in some districts however, so much so that we parked on the street metres from a four story Mercedes Benz outlet fully stocked with vehicles on all floors, yet right in front of a surviving market garden, with old mate's canvas lean-to still providing him a home among his flourishing vegetables.

Cynthia Sah is a world renowned sculptor of marble, her accessible works dotting the globe after decades of critical acclaim. Interestingly, she spent her middle and high school years in Taiwan attending our school. She now lives and works in a converted marble factory/warehouse in Italy! Esoteric at first glance to me, I was armed with the gallery guide as we wandered around yet Cassy invariably guessed the form she was trying to recreate. Cass, "It's a leaf of some sort." Dave (consulting the guide), 'Yes, it's called 'Leaf Variation II' ". She got them nearly every time! The gallery space was multi-storied and cavernous, three vast rooms in a white wash a perfect canvas for these Carrara marble mini-masterpieces. We love this sort of art: it is spare and clean, a vision wrought from stone after painstaking modelling and sculpting. It seems a nod to the Italian greats who used this raw material all those centuries before. I can just imagine Cynthia's chisel twitching with anticipation as she gazes upon the Prisoners ,in the forecourt leading to Michelangelo's "David" in the Accademia in Florence, as they, forever trapped, struggle to emerge from their monolithic blocks of raw marble! She could help with that!

After an extremely enjoyable and calming interlude in a gallery we pretty much had all to ourselves, we traveled further into Neihu proper for a late lunch/early dinner. We could hear the last sputtering gasps of the small chain of "Aubergine" restaurants here in Taipei last time we visited. The last franchise tucked away on a quiet street, the staff uninterested and listless. Sure enough, when we turned the corner we were confronted with a brand new cafe in its space! A little sad, yet undeterred, we scootered round a few of the lanes and alleys till we spied "Campus Cafe". It turned out to be a great spot, rich in American faux memorabilia and decoration and serving a wide range of burgers and pastas. We negotiated the Chinese menu with a smattering of English, and I ended up with a possible coronary inducing double cheeseburger and Cass a salt laden pasta. We indulged in our guilty feast with the solace of knowing we don't eat like this every day!

Back home to stream some Aussie Twenty20 with Sri Lanka, some down time with attentive old cats, and getting slowly prepared for another hectic week at work. Mr. Lee came up to fix a leaky toilet pipe and I managed to hold a semi-comprehensible conversation with him in Chinese, of which I was pathetically proud! Photos: shot in the mirror at the cinema, Virg sunning, and shots of the gallery, Dahzi and the diner. Video of Cynthia Sah exhibition here.

About 20 years ago, I was lucky to be among the very first people to take advantage of laser eye surgery back in Newcastle. Dad was skeptical at the time, but as a wise and careful medico would, if I was determined to go ahead, he advised me to at least trust my eyes to acknowledged and experienced ophthalmologists of the day. I took his sage advice and it has proved to be one of the best decisions I've ever made: I've had decades of perfect vision, unencumbered by the need for spectacles or other vision "assistants".

The docs at the time did manage to convince me to have their PRK treatment rather than the slightly more invasive scalpel and lift method which became the standard in coming years. My method involved the scraping of the eyeball to rough up the surface to allow the laser to penetrate to the back. This is fine in theory, yet meant my writhing on a sweat soaked sheet, like a junkie craving a hit, while I waited for my next dose of painkilling eye-drops every few hours in the post-op recovery: this lasted for a few days!

Obviously, my verbosity remains untamed, as all this was just meant to be a brief segue into Cassy's need for glasses to read fine print in most places we go! She can get away with the old "squint and reach" method of reading the labels at the supermarket at a pinch, but in the dim light of an evening restaurant, she needs to whip out the traveling specs. In the photo above, she's trying out her latest pair of "thinoptics" which seem to be very practical and very light and transportable. A real success! To finish up about the laser surgery: I'm not immune to the ravages of time, but rather still benefiting by the surgeon's suggestion to "over-correct" my vision so that I might stave off the effects of the aging eye for a few years after it began to take effect. Why, I even still have my magenta heavy rigid vehicle license, which requires 20/20 vision, for a few more years! Fingers crossed, as I tilt the head back to focus and extend my arm ever so slightly....!

I often have a few beers on a Friday night down at a local German style restaurant, Uli's, where Wal and I meet for a debrief of the week and are joined on odd occasions by a succession of visitors. Our erstwhile companion, Gurecki, was our other mainstay, but he's been gone for over three years now, although we still half-expect him to come and pull up a stump with a story or two! We got a shock last Friday to discover that "our" outdoor slab of wood table with its associated tree stumps for seats has been removed, along with the little garden shielding it from the street. We gleaned what we could from the staff, but they could only tell us that the owners had done it and they weren't sure what would replace it, if anything. In the interim, they moved a table and chairs from inside to sit on the quite barren and exposed spot, just for us. The beers were the same, but the ambiance destroyed: we're all hoping for a good outcome!

It was bitterly cold this weekend, and we both had the "puffy" jackets employed at various stages when we exited into the teeth of the wintery days and evenings. Inside we were warm and snug, with attentive cats on warm blankets and our new air-conditoner purring out some cosy heat, wafting down on all four of us cocooned on the lounge with tracky-dacs, rugs and ugg boots. It wasn't encouraging us to venture out....yet, venture forth we did, and we found the return trip from the cinema quite invigorating on the scooter!

John Wick Chapter 2 is not the genre of movie we'd normally see, but the "Kill Bill" cinematography and spare script of the original version was a surprise hit of a few years back. This sequel received similarly gushing praise for its sumptuous sets, lavish photography and incredible stunts. If one could look past the gratuitous violence and splatterfest nature of the developing "story", it was very entertaining. Cass gave it a B+: I might even nudge it a touch higher. We loaded up with a banquet of the usual quality at The Spice Shop before scootering home in the aforementioned  arctic temps.

Photos: not much chance this weekend, but one of my fourth graders was displaying some trendy footwear, Cass modeled in front of the huge poster for the upcoming final chapter in the Wolverine franchise (of interest to us as Wal's son is also named Logan!), and she tries her new specs at The Spice Shop. I took a late shot today of some of my Grade 4 kids as well. Cass is re-reading parts of White Sands in preparation for her book club discussion this Friday, and I'm just starting All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Chinese New Year seems to be gaining a foothold in other cultures more and more these days, as mentions and nods to the Year of the Rooster are made in different countries and environments as the years move on. For us, it signals a break from work along with all sorts of traditional practices which we need to be aware of as we negotiate the landscape for the unusual week.

Apart from the cacophony of fireworks at weird and wonderful hours, the unpredictable location and duration of same, and the intermittent shutting of shops and restaurants depending on the festivities planned for certain days, we also enjoyed the post-apocalyptic feel of the streets and the muted audio track that the city plays out during this time.

We headed to the north coast for a super long drive on Sunday, traveling with a cruise of other folk who were heading for various family celebrations. We weren't, so we negotiated the north coast highway with a vague eye on the surf (boards on board, of course!), as well as lapping up the fine weather and beautiful sights of ocean and mountain hinterland. After a long drive up and back along the coast we ended up at the far end of Green Bay to watch a succession of tandem para-gliders drift down from the looming coastal mountain to a pin-point precision landing on the beach right before our eyes. (see video above).

A couple of days later we set off on an ambitious hike up through the back slopes of Yangminshan to the pinnacle of the near slope up near the Cultural College. Luckily we motored up the first slopes, so steep I had to jettison Cass from the back for a short stint so that "Blacky" could make it up to our base camp. From there we navigated our way past abandoned mansions and huts being overtaken rapidly by encroaching jungle, up knee-shriekingly steep flights of stone steps covered with a mist of moss, across access roads and past huge electrical towers piercing the native bushland. Eventually, past the little temples and the grand concrete edifices dotting the peak of the ridgeline, we emerged at the back of the floral experimentation centre. Even though it took us a long way from our intended destination, it was a beautiful and peaceful spot carpeted with flowers and plants and manicured paths and trails.

We wandered back from the main road into the strange little ghost town of former American Institute in Taiwan housing. Long abandoned and conjuring up images of the Dharma Initiative housing from the TV series "Lost", this village of 60s era housing stock is slowly being re-imagined by creative restaurateurs. Many of the restaurants are embracing the retro feel of the houses and grounds by outfitting them in sympathetic style. We passed numerous houses that had been transformed into an American diner style cafe, some with classic American cars as mascots, others with quirky and interesting garden furniture and cleverly matching decor inside. Our selection, Cine, with just a whiff of French about it, was vaguely disturbing in that we sat at a lounge suite with a coffee table exactly like ours at home.....sixteen year old furniture has become retro! It also housed lots of betamax videos, Japanese robots and sit-in classic Nintendo gaming machines!

Anyway, we dined in fine style with assurances to each other that we would visit again soon, before embarking on our journey back down the mountain. My illiotibial band was crying foul half-way down yet I managed to make it down without too much damage. Cass and I can still feel a bit of a calf burn even now, but we were pretty much crippled for the next day or two afterwards!

The rest of the week was relatively uneventful save from a stimulating trip down to the impressive Taipei Arena for a major WTA international tennis tournament! We'd spied some advertising for this competition, so dutifully sourced the website and saw that our very own Samantha Stosur was slated for action on Friday afternoon. Allowing us yet another sleep-in and laconic breakfasting, we headed down in the early afternoon to be treated to great entertainment. We had superb court-side seating and I managed to do my share of "C'mon Sam"s at prodigious volume, despite the fact that the Taiwanese crowd was reminiscent of the one hushed over Eddie Charlton's snooker table in venerable English billiard halls! Cass and I soon managed to rev up some of the locals by encouraging our fellow Aussie, unfortunately though it might have backfired, as the Chinese girl seemed to get stronger and stronger from that point on and Sam subsequently lost. Undeterred, we soldiered on and eventually dined in the Eslite building nearby at Yokohama Monogatari, where we each had a mouth-watering steak with salad bar accompaniments.

We watched the entire first series of "The Crown" during the week along with some one-day cricket (both of us) and the Auckland Nines (mainly me) and UFC (exclusively me!). The girls luxuriated in the available warm laps and covering at various unusual periods of the day, as well as resting their arthritic joints in the soothing blankets of our bed! We had an amazingly relaxing week to recover fully from our Christmas travel exertions, partly aided by delicious home-made lemon butter on slabs of hot toast each day....Cassy's CNY treat! Bring on Semester Two!

Photos: fairly self explanatory I think....the baby is Wal's youngest son, Eli. Books: We're both reading Alan Furst WW11 spy mysteries courtesy of Gurecki. Cass is reading "A Hero of France" and I'm reading "Spies of Warsaw"