....fotojenik.....that's the name to remember. Now my sister Sue is fully set up and ready to go, I thought it was about time I mention her new business to you again. She has a nifty little studio set up and will travel, as they say, to look after any photographic requirements you might have. She's an expert at portraiture, especially kids and has just completed her second wedding shoot. The results are spectacular; interesting and different and at a very reasonable price. She's well worth contacting on (02) 4961 3362 if you're in or around the Newcastle area. She'll even look after your framing.
It's hard to believe that it is the end of March already; school has less than a quarter to go before we're home again. At the moment, I'm trying to ride out a severe head cold after worrying at first that I had contracted the deadly SARS disease (being typically over-dramatic). I need to get well for the arrival of Cassy's parents on Monday who will stay for a week before heading over to China for a while. This will be their second visit.... it can't be too bad here after all. We're both looking forward to their visit of course and Carl Hiroko and the boys will also enjoy seeing them, so we'll organise a few get-togethers. Chad is also threatening to have a drink with Chris.....look out!
I was very concerned to read in the online paper that the majority of Australians now support the war.......we're working with a vast majority of Americans here and even though there are a few red neck flag waving good ole boys and gals, people here are as horrified as we are. Probably best let this topic alone....I'll start ranting.
We've borrowed a little Laser from some friends so we can take Chris and Val up into the mountains and maybe out to the coast (Taiwanese families can fit 4 on a scooter, but I think we might be a bit bigger than most!) so that should be fun.
A whole stack of our colleagues, about 90 all up, have gone to Thailand for a conference and some lazing around on beaches. The strange fascination with working in part of your holiday is explained by the fact that the school pays your airfare, conference fees and accommodation for the length of the conference at a 5 star resort! I'm still trying to come to terms with the professional development funds available here......we used to get excited when we got a trip to Sydney!
More are staying here however, for all sorts of reasons: hosting visitors, staying safe and not traveling with what feels like a target on your head, worries about SARS etc
Anyway, we'll be here and..........loving it! Best to all back home, if you haven't written an email get to it you slackers!

We've enjoyed immensely the emails we've received over the past week. Our great correspondents Thurza and our parents were joined by Sue and Ildi, the latter certainly not slowed down by baby Anika.
Cass and I didn't get to bed till about 1 am this morning after a marathon session at the "Brass Monkey". We arrived at 3.30 in the afternoon, in time to secure pretty good seats for the World Cup match, which began at 4. And what a match! The bar was filled with about 2/3 Indians and 1/3 Aussies for the big battle. The Indians were setting up some great chants and adding to the atmosphere with whistles etc. They are a wonderful crowd; we loved being there with them. Some of the more boorish Australians started up some rather strange chants and of course, the ubiquitous "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie" which lacks a lot of imagination and Indian flair, but at least gave the boys something to shout! We were mesmerized by the Australian batting performance and quietly congratulated ourselves on our commitment to the game that saw us witness one of the great innings. Suffice to say, we were a little tired when the alarm went off at its usual pre 6am time, but not disappointed.
The precursor to all this action was of course the first Indian vs. The Rest of the World cricket match, right here at Taipei American School on Saturday night. The Indian dads had been pestering (sledging!) us for some time to have a challenge match and finally we got it together on Saturday. Our team of Aussies, NZ, South Africa and even a Canadian all had a bit of a bash and a bowl. We had a ball! The Indians were a little surprised by our ability I think (even though it was more bash than caress!), as they have been playing regularly in a secret location for some time. We had no equipment but borrowed theirs, even down to the white ball, as it was a "day/nighter".
There were some surreal moments. The one which stands out most vividly is standing at first slip and looking around some time during the Indian innings. The field was lit up and we were applauding our bowler's just delivered ball a la the "real" Australians. Apartment buildings surrounded the ground on all sides and behind them the mass of Yangminshan mountain rose. A white bed sheet flapped from the balcony of a nearby high-rise with the words "Play Cricket, Not War" emblazoned on it for all to see. A fellow teacher who lived there was making a point, which we all appreciated and agreed with.
This message struck home with a vengeance the next morning when our Australian colleague woke to be told his cameraman brother had been the victim of a suicide bomber in Iraq.
"Play Cricket, Not War" made even more sense after that.

It was a great night at the cricket downtown and we plan to go again for the semi on Tues and the final next Sun (assuming we make it.... not much doubt)
We've had an amazing weekend as we have taken delivery of a digital set top box for the TV, which adds certain digital channels to our usual 104 channels on cable. We get a number of new ones, but most notably BBC World, TV5 France (in French), DW Germany (in English and German), a Korean channel, a Malaysian channel and a few we already get on cable, but of better quality. The main one is.........ABC (Asia Pacific)!!! It's just unreal; we get news each night at 7, with great local (Aussie) stories and of course, sport for the last 10 minutes. We get old episodes of Water Rats and Blue Heelers (which we never watched back home and are thankful now!) and great current affairs like Focus from SBS, Landline and best of all, Four Corners.
So this weekend we're reveling in our Aussie TV and listening to 2GB footy talk streaming live over the Internet. We're listening to the continuous call team right now, and have just heard the Knights win in a classic come from behind fight. We celebrated by playing and singing the "Playing Hard, Playing Tough" song of the Knights that we've downloaded from the Knight's website... the neighbours must really think we're nuts now, if they didn't before!
Of course, there was a period of about an hour this morning where we were watching the ABC TV with sound muted, listening to 2GB AND reading the latest and greatest clippings that Mum has sent from the Newcastle Herald. In between times I was ringing Carl so we could marvel at the programming on our new TV (he got it too; in fact, found us a much better deal than the original one we had heard about)
So, it's a far cry from days in Japan when I sometimes wondered whether Australia was still actually there. No Internet, email, TV etc..... we're doing pretty well here now in comparison.

Well, mid-week is not a usual time to have fun, but I broke the rules a little last night. We'd received an email at school about the Aussie-NZ cricket game in the super sixes in the World Cup. The oddly named (yet quite apt, considering recent weather) "Brass Monkey" in an unexplored part of town was advertising the game as being on the "big screen". Anyway, after the Aussie innings, about 7.30 our time a bunch of Aussies rang around and 8 of us headed downtown to catch the NZ innings (including one kiwi and two Yanks) What a night. We looked around the bar and commented that we could have been anywhere; everyone was Aussie, Kiwi or Indian. Wickets were cheered or ignored depending on whom you were supporting, beers were drunk and stories shared. The screen was, indeed, BIG and we're looking forward to our semi and hopefully the subsequent final on Sunday week. Brass Monkey, here we come!!
We went up to the fumaroles today with grade 3 on a "field trip" (excursion) and enjoyed some great sights and weather. My darling wife continues to plug away at work and I have promised her she will accompany me next time there is cricket to be watched downtown. She was a touch upset about missing out this time round(!)

This was some sort of psycho cold snap we had this weekend! 10-12 degrees but with some humidity heavy wind as well and that cold just cut through every layer of clothes we had on. I suppose we should be thankful; no doubt this we'll be the last little bit of cold we have as we move steadily into another hot, humid summer.
We've enjoyed reading about Newcastle, family and friends via a great succession of emails from my sister Sue, Cassy's Mum and Dad, my Mum and our friend Thurza. Lois wrote late last week as well and filled us in with some "Grammary" goss. We kicked off the weekend by reading some excellent news clippings that Mum had sent over. It's always a little bit like Christmas to check my mailbox at the school's post office to discover that familiar big white envelope! Mum does a great job picking out some local stuff that we can't get over the internet etc and it helps us feel a bit closer to home. This was especially important for us this week as we officially resigned from our jobs at Newcastle Grammar and felt a bit strange and isolated here. We're comfortable with our decision and incredibly happy with our jobs and life here, but it's certainly the end of an era for us both and it signifies a massive commitment to our plans to work overseas for some time.
We sandwiched "The Hours" last weekend with Shanghai Knights and "Analyze That" this Saturday. I love De Niro and we'd seen the first installment and it was a lot of fun. In fact this one was so much fun, we shocked the local crowd a little by laughing uproariously at regular intervals....they didn't seem to get some of it, I think a lot is probably lost in translation in a comedy.
Anyway, the high brow entertainment out of the way on Saturday, on the way home we bought "The Majestic" and "Panic Room" on video for $5 as a package. Not usually buying videos we couldn't pass by this bargain....something quite mysterious about recent movies so cheap, but they look genuine enough. Well, we came home, watched "The Majestic" and dined on Cassy's delicious "Salmon Supreme" while quaffing a bottle of Rawsons Retreat (not so cheap!!)
Sunday was still bitterly cold and a late breakfast, more clippings, a bit of internet and lazing around saw us ready to eat lunch out! We ate at a German cafe/coffee house near where we live called 'Backerei' and we had a special meal with soup and cake and coffee to accompany Cassy's pesto tagliatelle and my German sausage and sauerkraut.
A slightly less glamorous afternoon followed where we bought a fluoro globe in one store and then caught the MRT a couple of stops to buy a metal blind to replace the (second!) PVC blind that had broken in our bedroom.
Chris and Val are coming to visit us at the end of the month for a week before they make their way over to that really big China across the strait from us........we're really looking forward to seeing them.

Framingham masters subject finished on Friday night with an exam. This went OK I think, so to celebrate a little we went up to Section 7 and went to a nice restaurant and ate gourmet pizzas! They were delicious and we wandered back down the road doing a bit of window-shopping along the way. Saturday saw us having a magnificent leisurely brekky of raison toast and coffee while reading all sorts of interesting stuff about Newcastle as Mum had prepared and sent another package of clippings. We read some more this morning but saved a bit for next weekend.
Back to Saturday.....We hopped on the bike and made record time down to the Living Mall to see "The Hours". We both thought it was a fantastic film, but I have to say I'm a little perplexed why Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep have only been nominated as "best supporting". I thought Julianne Moore, in particular, stole the show; her performance was mesmerizing and while "our" Nicole did a very good job, I despair a little that all it takes to be nominated for a "best" award these days seems to be the portrayal of a mentally deficient person. Anyway, enough of that.....Thai restaurant "Bird" sang for our patronage, but we zoomed off across town to a little back alley where "Mr. Fish" lives! 2 pieces of battered fish, chips, vinegar, salt and tartare is a little touch of heaven here in Taipei. After dining we explored some wacky back street life in the south eastern corner of the city, interesting, but a story in itself, so I'll leave that to another time.
We were determined to leave early on Sunday morning to view the cherry blossoms in Yang Min Shan national park. We left to go up the mountain at 10, but it was still early enough to beat most people up there. As we drove around we saw many beautiful cherry blossom trees and I was reminded very much of Japan, even though the trees here were much younger and not as big. We embarked on a walk up a mountain trail and although at the time it seemed rather steep, we persevered for ages, as the track got increasingly steep and dangerous with moss and water making our footholds precarious. We eventually gave up and turned back down, mainly as we were sweating a lot and not really enjoying it. On the way down we thrilled to the close sighting of a Taiwanese squirrel scooting along branches doing his thing. We stopped and watched for 5 minutes and felt our walk was worthwhile.
Cass had made some chicken sandwiches (!) for lunch and we ate them looking at more blossoms. After a quick tour of the visitor's centre we did another little walk to a viewing pagoda where not only could we see all the way down into Taipei city on one side, but we got a true idea of the mountain we were trying to climb on the other. A Monster of sheer (not quite!) walls and endless inclines of frightening proportion. At least we felt a little bit better about wimping out of the whole climb. Home via the "back gate" to escape the by now teeming hordes who had found their way up the mountain (for example, the coach car park which holds 150, was full, many of them double deckers!) The Aussies seem to be kicking some major pommy butt in the cricket right now, which makes us a little sorry we didn't venture to "The Tavern" (The big English hangout downtown) which is showing the game live. We'll go and cheer them on when they're in the "super sixes". That's all for now..thankyou kind folk who have emailed us with a personal message.

Our past week has been very quiet, Cass again a Framingham "widow" while today another course enters its second week. Our lecturer is insisting on a constant return of work, very hard to cope with when you work all day as well. As he says "If you want to study this way (at night) then you have to put up with the workload" Anyway, it will all be over soon, till next time!
We saw some brain dead entertainment on the weekend, about all we could cope with was Shanghai Knights with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. Chan contorted himself in some amazing choreographed martial arts/ dance routines, and it was light and bright and funny. We were glad in a way that "The Hours" doesn't start till today...we'll save that treat till next weekend. Who am I fooling......I loved "Shanghai Knights"!!
Aussie dramas "Dead Letter Office" with 'our' Miranda and "The Interview" were DVD finds on the way back from the cinema. I washed the scooter after talking all about scooters in the last entry, so now it's eminently 'stealable' again! If you're reading this, how about sending us an email?....we can count on the fingers of a three-fingered man our regular correspondents! Duty calls......bye for now.

We don't know how we got around before we had our scooter (well actually we do: we caught the train or walked or caught a cab) but it's been a great help to us in finding our way around the city and to places further afield, like the beach and the national parks. But some of the sights we see should be noted, as we've become a little blasé about them. For example, on our way into town today (to see some Matisse paintings......we didn't, but that's another story!) we saw some "normal" scooter sights here in Taipei.
Scooters have a special spot at the front of every intersection and it's not uncommon to have scooters 20 abreast and at least 15 deep at major intersections. When the lights change we all just give our bikes full throttle and sort out our places as we go along. It's very frightening at first......sometimes it still is, when you're in the middle of this pack on a scooter going 70 km which feels like 120! It is usual to see whole families on a scooter: Mum, Dad and a couple of kids, one of the kids usually crouched on the "floor" area between rider and handlebars. We once saw a tiny baby wedged in between kid 2 and Mum and dad making 5 in total!
Today, we saw a girl doing her homework on the back of a scooter, leaning her papers on her boyfriends back as he rode along; dogs riding along are very common, calm as you like in the traffic and noise and general mayhem. The dogs sometimes stand on their hind legs to get a better view! Another terrible distraction is the habit of many girls to wear mini skirts with long boots, but Cass doesn't seem to notice them(!) Of course, even if our bike is going flat out there are always a few boy racers who'll whiz past us in the blink of an eye on an illegally modified bike.
We duck and weave through traffic, inside and outside buses and cabs. We fly along the narrow corridors between the inside lane and parked cars, always wary of drivers opening doors, or taxis that will cut straight across in front of a scooter if they spy a fare.
Anyway, we did arrive home safely again after another trip to town on the scooter. The Matisse, I hear you ask? The line was sooooo long we couldn't bear the thought of the wait, so maybe next time.

We're into the home stretch of our Chinese New Year break now and we've had a good time except for cassy getting sick(see below) Just today we put the bike through its paces up to Yangminshan national park and some parts of the road were so steep that we could have hopped off the bike and walked faster! However, we eventually forced the poor little thing to the top where we enjoyed a nice breather in some open air and nice scenery.
We eked out Mum's clippings package over many breakfasts this holiday and it was great...sometimes the best part of the day. As we haven't been at school since last Thursday, there may well be more awaiting us. I finished the 7th course in my Masters last Wednesday and am "looking forward to" the next one almost back to back to begin on Feb 17 for another two weeks. Many people have gone away here so we haven't seen many people around and most businesses only re-opened today. It's been interesting to finally see Taipei slow down a little. We have plans to go to our favourite Thai restaurant "Bird" tomorrow and I bought a pair of Giorgio Armani jeans the other day;very slick!
Cass continues the letter below.......

We've had a pretty quiet week as I came down with a bit of a stomach bug on Monday and that knocked the stuffing out of me (literally!!!) Nothing serious but I spent a couple of days in bed (reading/sleeping) or on the lounge ( watching dvds or crap tv). The next day I felt ok but it was freezing and raining, so I didn't vary the routine much - just different proportions (not so much sleeping!). David was very good and went to the gym each day and he did the shopping on Blackie, as we were running out of staples (coffee).
Today we went "out for some air" downtown on the MRT to Taipei Main station ( you know the one!). We had a look around and ended up buying the "Mad Max" dvd and Queen's "Jazz" cd : we'd each had a hankering for one of those - you can tell who wanted which one! (although we'll both enjoy the other's choice too!) What we really had to do was to go to the tax office, which is quite near there. I'd had to go there last year to PAY extra tax (!!!) but this time it was to fill in the forms for a REFUND (yay!). It's quite a complicated situation - to do with their tax year being a calendar year and me starting at TAS (where I don't have to pay tax because I teach Middle School, not PRE-school.... you get the idea) . Anyway it all seems to have panned out the way it was supposed to and I'll get LETTER in about THREE or FOUR MONTHS telling me that my refund cheque is there ( in the Taipei tax office) ready to be COLLECTED !!!! Can you believe what an antiquated system it is? David reckons that it's to discourage people from bothering to collect their refunds - they didn't reckon on such a tightarse, did they? I'll fill in a few forms and make a couple of trips downtown for $1100 AUS !!
I was laughing this morning -we didn't have any orange juice for breakfast (Chinese new year the stocks in 7-11 had run out.) BUT we did have oranges! (Linda, Mr. Lee's daughter, from downstairs had brought up some lovely oranges for us for Chinese new year - the colour is symbolic of gold which is supposed to be lucky.) So I squeezed some fresh orange juice and thought of Grandma squeezing fresh juice every day for Grandpa - she could have it! It takes too long (and the oranges are too cumbersome to drag from the supermarket.
We found another great curry place downtown today and next to it was a pasta/pizza place that also looked good so we'll be back there for sure!

My mate from Minnesota, Chad and I did our major presentations for our course on Saturday morning. Much against our own better judgment and to our wives' horror we had more than a few "sherbets" on Friday night. Suffice to say, although the worse for wear, we bumbled through and actually got a very good grade. We have team taught now for 6 months and find we can bounce ideas off each other pretty readily (although a third grade audience is a tad more forgiving than our adult class of colleagues!)
Just a few more days and another course will be finished and Chinese New Year looms large. We have a week off for this local celebration and as it is a time spent with family, many businesses close, at least for a few days. If the weather is poor, at least we have a few DVDs to watch. We've been following our friend, Thurza's Italian adventures very closely through her terrific and informative emails. It has made us yearn a little for Caunes Minervois, as the village she is based in Italy, Barga, sounds VERY similar. She sounds like she's having a fabulous time.
We had a pretty quiet day yesterday as I didn't get home from "class" till after midday, and had expended most of the energy I could muster earlier in the day.
We had a great lazy morning reading each other clips from newspapers that my Mum (thanks Mum!!!) had sent. She sent a great collection, including what "our" kids from the Grammar got into at Uni. It was fun to see how they'd all gone and to pat ourselves on the back for 'teaching them all they know'!!
Our favourite restaurant downtown, "Aubergine" got a workout this afternoon for a very pleasant lunch, then we wandered around the French FNAC shop and wondered at some beautiful books and (of course) bought a couple of DVDs. The scooter zipped its way to the night market on the way back home and I made Cass buy some excellent sunglasses even though she said she didn't want them. I bought 4 pairs of socks for work from a street vendor and now we're home. Hope all are well.........we'll write again when we have something to say......don't forget to email us!

Last weekend, we took Sean and Steven to see "The Two Towers" on Sunday and had a lovely time with them. We rang up to see if they'd like to come (we took them to the first one and they enjoyed it) and they didn't hesitate to say yes when the idea was floated. They like the movies and it's easy and fun to take them occasionally.
The TV's changed since we went away - no more George Clooney on ER. Channel CM has disappeared into the ether... to be replaced with Animal Planet (one of the Discovery group). This is fine, as I had to stay up till 9 pm to catch a glimpse of George (I only ever made it on Friday nights!) and Animal Planet has the Aussie show Animal Doctor (??I think, something like that; anyway it has Lochie Daddo and some girl with black hair co-hosting it). The show airs at 6pm (can stay awake for this one!) BUT.. it often has emotionally distressing and/or gory scenes, just when you're trying to eat dinner!!! So we're in 2 minds about this - although just hearing some Australian and seeing some "normal" space is quite exciting for us. (by Cassy)
Sunday night sees us at the end of a great and relaxing weekend. We had our usual fairly busy week and Carl and I had a few beers on Friday night at a quiet bar called the 'wow-wow' near our place. It was our 15th wedding anniversary on Thursday and we had planned to go to one of Taipei's fancy restaurants as a special treat. We were so well prepared in fact, that we had bought a book called "Taipei's 100 best international restaurants" and looked through until we found one that really appealed. We chose the Italian one that came in 2nd overall. Anyway Thursday night found us both a little tired so we postponed it till Sat night. The decor was OK but nothing special, the service exceptional and the food first class. The fillet steak with mushroom sauce I had was THE most delicious steak I have ever eaten....this is no exaggeration. After a $70 bottle of wine (one of the cheapest on the menu!) the night certainly was not cheap, but a wonderful experience for us both. It didn't quite match the 10th (Paris), so I'll have to work on something grander for our 20th!!
Sunday, we lazed around and listened to the start of the cricket(3 hours earlier here) before we took off on the scooter for a whiz down to the movies to see "Catch me if you can". I didn't have any great expectations, but Di Caprio was perfectly cast and Tom Hanks worked effortlessly under Spielberg's direction. An excellent fun movie.
I'm starting another Master's subject tomorrow, so I'll be pretty quiet for a couple of weeks. See you!

First week down in semester 2 and it was a bit tiring after our break.
Sorry about not catching up with everyone during our 2 weeks back home.....the main reason being laid low with a dreaded "plane lurgy"for the whole first week!! Yes, pretty much except Christmas day, we both sat around the house with a box of tissues feeling sorry for ourselves. We got to watch plenty of cricket which was good, but didn't get too much drinking and being merry done at all.
The second week was much better, we managed to get to the beach more than a few times and catch up with family, but it certainly didn't leave a lot of time for much else. We'll see you in June/ July!
Back in Taiwan, we're certainly back in the swing of things and looking forward to a wintery weekend. The temp has dropped quite dramatically here, so much so that we needed to buy a little blowing heater the other day. It's not terribly effective in our large living space but it takes the edge off.
We've missed eating our Chinese noodles and plan to go and eat them quite soon; no doubt a very good idea, as I for one found that someone had snuck into our place while we were away and substituted my roomy pants for these really strange tight ones!! Oh well, we enjoyed our hamburgers, pies and chips for a while.
Will write again after the weekend if we do anything worthwhile mentioning!

Monday afternoon and time is a draggin. Prospects for going home at the end of the week are making us edgy to get out of here. We have a very short stay really (less than 2 weeks) so we're looking to pack as much eating, drinking, being merry as well as relaxing into that short time.
We (somewhat belatedly) saw "The Ring" here on the weekend and I have to admit I haven't been so scared since all work and no play made Jack a dull boy in "The Shining"! "Our" Naomi Watts was pretty slick too we thought. We had dinner at a fancy Thai restaurant at the top of the Living Mall called "Bird". We sat beneath a fake tree, which had real birds in little cages chirping away all evening. It was a delicious meal....rivaling the best Thai we have eaten. We bought a book called 'Taipei's top 100 international restaurants', which is in both Mandarin and English. We have already picked out a few must visit places and were delighted to see a number of restaurants we have visited got a mention; we thought they were great, the book thought they were just average, so we can't wait to visit the 'good' ones!
A ride home at night with Saturday party crowds out and about was another special experience (!) We stopped at a park behind the fine arts museum and went to a spot just half way in that we have found on the way home. Why? We watch planes come in to land! They fly into the domestic airport just beyond this park and fly straight above us here. If you lean back as they go overhead, it's great fun. Oh well, small things........!

I've been so slack lately but I've been pretty tired and I've had a bit of marking to do too; the joys of the end of term. This semester has gone so quickly in some ways and yet these last few weeks have slowed right down.
Yesterday I went to a "French conversation" get-together at the home of the Middle School French teacher, along with a mixed group of francophones: there are quite a few French-speakers at the school. We indulged in some wine, cheese and gossip (all French/ in French) and I had quite a good time. It was a bit frightening as there are some native speakers and some others who are very adept; my French is very rusty but I was pleased to be able to follow what was going on - even if my own efforts were a bit pedestrian.
Today I had coffee after school with one of the women I lunched with at work last year, Pat. Her daughter is in grade 3 and I ran into her last week dropping off the daughter at school. We arranged to meet and had a good chat. She's a lovely person and I enjoyed catching up with her.
This week saw the announcement of some significant news by the guy with whom I work very closely (Chris Hall) : he and his wife are having a baby in June. It may mean that he/they won't be back next year, although it hasn't been decided yet. It would be a bummer for me as he's fantastic to work with and we get on very well. Also, our great "team leader",Kara, is going to the job fair so she may be leaving too. Hopefully Cathy Funk will hire comparable replacements, if it comes to that.
David's done his reports but mine can't be finalised till I mark one last project that the kids hand in on Monday. Our grades aren't due till Thursday, but I'll do some preliminary maths this weekend to make the final calculations a bit easier once I get their projects marked. The reporting system is a bit primitive over here - no class rankings/average, exam marks/average/rankings, cumulative rankings - just a grade based on class work.
We put up our xmas tree tonight - the fibre optic model from B&Q. It's a beauty!! We no longer rely on the tv for visual stimulation - we just sit mesmerised as the tree twirls on its base, brilliant colours glowing and pulsing through a broad spectrum.
No great plans for the weekend - will see what takes our fancy once we get there!
Eight sleeps to go!

We had a great weekend, exploring the north coast highway no. 2 which eventually finds its way out of the city sprawl and hits the coast. We saw amazing volcanic extrusions and arches to walk through, coastal walks and stone bridges linking rocky little islands just off the coast, which you could walk across. It was the first truly pretty area of scenery that we'd seen. We traveled about 100 km, which isn't much in Aussie terms, but a fair hike on a little buzzing scooter!!

We plan to investigate this highway further.....one side of the road is a beautiful rocky coast with smashing (small!) waves, with mountains rising straight from the road on the other side...stay tuned.

We've got really slack with the site here, but Cassy won't write anything as she says she's lost all impetus. We're very much looking forward to coming home as you can probably guess!

We had a good thanksgiving party with Chad and Cathy on Thursday- nice food and fun company. David especially enjoyed his "evening"/morning. He and a few of the other stayers went downtown and extended their fun. I was a piker and came home at about 10pm (we started at 2pm). We bought some good Aussie wine (didn't trust the cheap muck we brought over to be of a satisfactory standard - not that they're real wine buffs or anything, but we didn't want to bring Aussie wine into disrepute) and I certainly enjoyed my share... It was good quality - no hangover

Friday, David "rested" and we listened to the cricket and read our books. The cricket is almost surreal at the moment. What's next? Beat them in 2 days?
On Saturday we received some terribly sad news, which, though we were expecting, cast a great pall over us which is still there now. Our friends and family know what this is, so enough said in this open forum.
Saturday we needed to distract ourselves so we went to the movies and saw "One Hour Photo" with Robin Williams - whom we don't really like - but it was an interesting look at a disturbed personality (who, ironically enough, was correct in his estimation of the situation, but weird in his response to it).
Sunday we didn't feel up to much so listened to the cricket till lunch, then took off on Blackie to check out the Matisse exhibition down near the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Well, we checked out the queue...and thought we might come back another day - earlier is better if you want to beat the crowds here. The show's on till mid-Febrary so we should be able to catch it sometime before it ends.

We'll have more than a thought about our friends in Newcastle tomorrow...it's a day we wish we could share.

we bought a fantastic Christmas tree on Saturday! It has these amazing fibre optic ends on all the "branches" which produce this mesmerizing light show. It sounds horrendously kitsch, but it actually looks really great.
We saw "Knockaround Boys" at the pictures and were really impressed with Vin Diesel......he really stole the movie. We battled the second weekend of Harry Potter crowds and even though it's been on here for 2 weeks, the crowds keep coming. The scooter braved the streets again and I'm realising that I'd better remember how to drive legally when I get back on the "big bike" at home.
We borrowed and watched all 4 "Alien" movies on DVD from some friends here, and thoroughly enjoyed them as well.
You probably get the theme of the weekend.....pretty lazy!
back to work now, I'd better go and do some!

David is just about had it at this stage - hope he makes it till tomorrow!! This course is even worse than the last one, so I pity him! We've been having "hot dates"(!!) each afternoon before his course starts; we go to a cafe and have coffee and talk. The people I work with are amazed that we want to spend so much time together! I miss him when he's at his course!
We think we'll go to the movies this weekend, as there's one starting that sounds good. I think it's called "Knockaround Boys" or something like that. City slickers meet country bumpkins - with a bit of pisstake involved- should be interesting.
I finished marking the (80) speeches on genetics today so my brain has slightly imploded from a lethal mixture of boredom and intense concentration!! Oh well, I used to have to do much worse.......... I've been spoiled a little here!
Speaking of being spoiled, we've been enjoying watching 2 episodes of "Friends" each evening (David's missed them lately). It's great just to watch a TV show without having to sit through a movie. The Discovery channel is not too bad either - as long as we avoid the (nightmare-inducing) wild- animals- killing- each- other shows!!! The travelogues are sometimes fascinating.
Catching a ride each morning on a scooter has also spoiled me! It's meant scouring the wardrobe for trousers to wear each day but it's saved my feet/heels as they adjust to "winter" shoes after summer sandals.
I went to the library today in preparation for thanksgiving - I plan to do some serious reading!! We've been invited again to Chad and Cathy's place for dinner, along with a whole group of other (nice) people, so we're really looking forward to that. Next week we only work Mon, Tues, Wed then have Thurs, Fri off!! Our Thanksgiving show is on Thursday and we plan to go up Yangming Shan as well sometime over the break, if it's not raining. (Cassy on Thursday)

Finished! Another installment of study finished. This one was especially tedious. Two weeks of research methodology and statistics with one of the most boring people on earth. At least it reminded me how NOT to teach my kids. Looking forward to a weekend of relaxation and no academic thought whatsoever.
On a totally different topic, if anyone wants some superb professional photography done (and lives near Newcastle, Australia!) I strongly recommend contacting my sister Sue. Her business, "Fotojenik", is generating some genuinely exciting photos. All bias aside, I've been blown away by some of the fantastic shots she is taking. For any work at all, big or small, why not give her a ring on (02) 4961 3362. Sue is great with kids and adults alike....... keep her in mind.
Anyway after that brief advert, I'll sign off. (David)

Sunday night again and ready for another big week. We had a pretty quiet weekend with no big trips etc, as we were both pretty tired from a big week.
Saturday was spent watching a movie or two and generally bumming around before we went "downtown" to find "Mr. Fish" which we had seen advertised in the 'Taipei Times' one of he Eng language newspapers here.
This might not seem very exciting, but it was for us. We rang Carl up and he, Hiroko and the boys joined us as we traveled into town on the train, changed trains and emerged with a funny little map. After a couple of false starts we eventually found the shop and enjoyed a couple of pieces of battered fish with chips! This does not exist anywhere else in Taipei!!
The owner is a Canadian /Chinese who originally wanted to set up shop in Shanghai, before realizing 1/2 his profit would go to the gangs of Triads.....anyway, we're pleased he chose Taipei.
Home again to watch the Aussies live as they went down narrowly to the Pommies in the rugby....good with English commentary.

Sunday was really lazy...little trip out for lunch at a nice coffee shop and a trip on the scooter to have a wander down a market alley or two.......we were pleased to look at some nice jade jewelry, yet less pleased to see live chickens awaiting their fate, with one of their' brothers getting plucked beside them!

I have another week of my course to run; it's called "Research and Evaluation Methodology" so you can imagine how rivetting that is after a full day at work! Oh well, just 5 more nights. We can get flights to Cairns now but are still waitlisted on early internal flights from Cairns to Newcastle. At least we'll be somewhere in Australia!

We had some fun last weekend and added to our dvd collection with 2 beauties and one pretty good one. On Sunday we went on the scooter downtown to the fnac centre near Ikea - just to browse through their dvds and books. We checked out the map and "Dave the legend" was easily able to negotiate the crazy Sunday drivers ( who add a whole new dimension to that saying) and parked with impunity opposite the Asiaworld Centre. Our timing was as good as ever so we had to build our energy to search the racks by eating first at "Aubergine"- our "favorite" Japanese style curry place. Yum!! Salad, soup, curry, rice and coffee for less than 500 NT($25) for the 2 of us! All delicious and served in a clean, stylish (for Taipei!!) restaurant.

Ready for action, we attacked the dvd specials but ... there were none worth buying! We had fun just looking at some beautiful books - cats, design and decorating, karate, architecture, fashion - and satisfied our need for beauty without having actually to buy them! Because of our fruitless search, on the way home we stopped off at the night markets, just in case they had any new bargains. Luckily for us, we found "Monster's Ball" ( the one that Halle Berry won an oscar for and which is very good) and "Ali" (the new one with Will Smith in the lead role)

On Saturday, we caught the MRT down to the Living Mall to go to the movies. We didn't ride down as David was a bit spaced from lack of sleep: he'd been on the grade 3 sleepover the night before. Needless to say, was not impressed with spending his Friday night at school but had no choice. Anyway, we saw "City by the Sea" - the new Robert de Niro one- and enjoyed seeing that veteran strut his stuff with Frances Mc Dormand ( Fargo) in it too. Interesting look at troubled family life played out against the thematically significant backdrops of intimate apartment scenes in Manhattan and derelict buildings on the water's edge at Longbeach.

Not content with going home the way we came (is it a "boy" thing??), we caught the free bus from the Living Mall, ostensibly to go back to Sun Yat Sen station and then home. But on the bus, David said, "Hey why don't we keep going and see where this bus goes?" I was not too sure of the merits of this plan (no English anywhere on the bus to indicate its destination) but, what the heck, we could always find the MRT (it's hard to miss!) Further along, everyone got off the bus at SOGO ( a big department store ) so we did too. We knew where we were ( near Chungshiao Fuhsing mrt) so we got home ok AND found a funny dvd at the Blockbuster near there, called "Clerks" that we'd seen a while back.

It's friday night now and I've just got home from my course.....it's mind numbingly boring but it's half way over now. Looking forward to the weekend............we'll think about that tomorrow.