The sky had a steely haze today and the wind was whipping through the treetops suggesting the day was cool, but it’s that really strange in-between weather that got us leaving the house well clad only to arrive back this afternoon in a bit of a sweat. We’ve been up to the Royal Host at Beitou to have a late lunch of their signature New Zealand steak (and paint thinner red wine!) and arrived back to catch a little cricket from the first game of the Australia/India one day series.

The weekend started in unusual fashion. We got the car out on Friday afternoon from the basement car park in anticipation of a run to the north coast on Saturday. The annual food fair was on Saturday at school and I’ve been caught before: in fact a couple of years ago, I remember wrestling out through the garage with my board in tow to catch a lift with someone and in quite a bizarre scene, walked through hay bales and the four ponies blocking the garage entrance giving little kiddies rides round the outside car park! Anyway, we had no such problems this weekend.

Cass and I drove out from our park nearby on the river road and got to Jinshan to be greeted by very messy, slow moving swell, very wind affected and totally uninviting. Continuing round the always picturesque northern highway round to Shimen and then beyond, I wasn’t expecting a lot, but Dan’s text, “lots of fellas, nice waves” didn’t quite prepare us for the sight as we crested the Greenball hill. The water was thick with surfers, little black dots bobbing and moving with the swell, and the road swollen with cars double and triple parked, surfers and gawkers alike choking the area in front of the scenic lookout.

Dan was on his way out and I followed closely behind negotiating the steep climb over rocks and tetra pods to make the paddle out spot. It was carnage out there: the swell was big enough to be interesting and the surf was smooth faced and powerful. The trouble was the 58 surfers sharing the one very narrow take off zone! After a narrow miss from an out of control mal rider, and three guys washing straight over the top of me during duckdiving a clean up set, I decided that discretion would be the better part of valour and paddled back in…it was just too dangerous, I reckon.

We drove back through the pretty hinterland at the back of Sanjih town and stopped off at a rather unusual structure perched on one of the highest hills beyond the town. It turned out to be an extremely ornate cemetery, the graves gleaming in blue and white tiles just hanging precariously on the steep hillside. Further on we stopped at another temple where we got some lunch at the local 7/11.

I was due to meet my book club group on Saturday night, but we weren’t starting till local lounge bar, “The Red Hut” opened at 9pm, so Cass and I watched some TV and had a very delicious dinner that she cooked, before I eventually meandered off in the mid evening drizzle to take the car back, then walk back to the bar. The book club group is an eclectic mix of men, all of whom work at school, but who represent many subject areas and are drawn from all 3 divisions. I’ve slowly warmed to the concept of this group, even though I had resisted its charms for many years, despite multiple invitations to join as I thought they were a bit elitist. They probably are to a certain extent, but it doesn’t really matter. We have good fun, all the guys are interesting characters and we all have a shared passion. Some of the best reading I’ve had in years is from recommendations from the other men here, so I’m enjoying the whole experience. Naturally, many beers are also drunk by all, which adds to the spice of the conversations as we drift along into the early hours of Sunday morning!

Late brekky this morning then I was delighted to be able to live stream the latest UFC, UFC 104 at 10 am. It was 7pm on Saturday night at the Staples center in Los Angeles: what an age we’re in! It was kind of freaky to watch this live event in our lounge room in Taipei, remotely beaming for the computer to the TV as it took place halfway across the world. In fact, right now, I am typing this on Cassy’s laptop sitting on the lounge as we both watch the cricket from India…I’ll just have to fiddle with the photos a bit later on.

I’m anticipating the photos I will use will be: me negotiating the entry to Greenball, getting out again, Cass at the hilltop cemetery and its Buddha, Cass at another Buddha near Beitou, a garish temple in the hills behind Danshui and one of the manholes which are ubiquitous in the Tienmu streets and lanes…they’re a real work of art. I’m reading “The Writing Book” by Kate Grenville, and Cass is reading, “People of the Book” by Geraldine Brooks for her upcoming book club meeting.

Australia is far more sophisticated and experienced than Taiwan in a certain rather bizarre area (and many others I suspect). The naturally occurring seasons falling in opposite quarters around the world means that Australia has experienced a full winter flu season of H1N1, of which Taiwan is only now on the verge. The protocols back home were stringent, the predictions dire and everyone was warned to brace for the very worst. Eventually, as hospitals strained at the seams and doctors stopped testing, instead advising normal flu precautions, people relaxed a little, remained vigilant and got on with life.

I have just been informed that one of the three classes with which I work will be quarantined this week. Taiwan has a protocol in place that TAS follows, which states that a class and their teacher must remain home from school for 5 days if two or more students test positive for H1N1 at any one time. Dave, the class teacher, is a new young teacher from Canada in his first year at TAS, so I can imagine how he must be treating this news. I will only have 2/3 of my support class and not be in his class at all, so I’ll need to deliver work to these kids via email and the online classroom. The school is geared up for these eventualities of course, but kids at this age and stage still have trouble with keyboarding skills, let alone the intricacies of receiving, completing then re-sending work electronically over a period of time. Oh well, we’ll wait and see how it goes…

On Friday, I was in the second day of parent conferences and Cassy had a PD day which was far from a picnic. She set herself a quota of essays to grade and somehow marked 19 of them before she went to meet her team for lunch at 1 o’clock! They went to Chili’s, but even though one of her favourites, I don’t know if she enjoyed it so much…her brain was set to explode! I got my car inspected on Friday afternoon and by some absolute miracle it passed all the tests including a rather stringent emissions test: the fact that I drove it around for 40 minutes before going in and literally blowing off a lot of smoke must have done the trick…

Cassy and I have had about the laziest day imaginable today and the rest of the weekend wasn’t much different! We’ve spent all day today lying around reading books, she with the unputdownable, The Slap, and me with the very strange, The Lost Symbol. I have spent vast amounts of hot air ranting about the poor quality of Dan Brown books, but thought I’d better actually read one in its entirety before making further aspersions. Verdict: although grammatically perfect and sophisticated vocabulary is used at times, it was frustrating to deal with overuse of exclamation points, italics to indicate every character’s most banal and obvious thoughts as well as the ludicrously short chapters. Each sentence and chapter follows a formula, and the mini climax at the end of each chapter just gets too weird... deeply disturbing, yet strangely compelling! Anyway, at least I tried: in fact they really remind me of the exciting Alastair MacLean books I read as a teenager, except not as good.

We had a major breakdown of electronic equipment this week so we’ve had to upgrade all sorts of things. We nearly got a new phone until we realized that we probably just needed to replace the fancy rechargeable batteries: solved. The monitor of the computer, an old boxy model had to make way for a slick new flat screen model when the old one started to dance and wave all over the place. The only creatures sad about this will be Virg’n Mary as they won’t be able to sit on the warm top anymore! We walked over to Carrefour yesterday afternoon and got a new wireless keyboard and mouse to replace the very old dirty faded and annoying corded set we’ve had for the last 8 years. So now, we actually have a set of accessories that match the super power of our computer and internet connection…much better. Continuing the upgrade of electronics, I recently bought an e-reader, which is proving to be a great success. I can store hundreds if not thousands of books on here if i choose, and will probably use it a lot when travelling. I’m reading Dan on it right now. It has a snazzy leather cover, and unlike the Kindle or Sony Reader, my Hanlin can read nearly every type of text file imaginable, like word, lit., pdf., epub. and about another 10 varieties. It’s another techy toy that I love!

Yesterday we went out to tea at Thai Town then wandered over to FNAC to get the phone batteries , came home and watched some TV went to bed late and had our super lazy day today: in fact, writing this has been the most exhausting thing I’ve done all day!
Photos: Cass at Thai Town, red lanterns on the street, the girls relaxing on the back of the lounge, the new screen, keyboard and mouse and me with the ereader.

If you're wondering where that beautiful Taiwan video has gone, well I put it under "videos" on the left, or you can view it again here.

The streetscape of Tienmu looks very different at 4.15 in the morning. The newly installed disco light poles were pulsing slowly in garish colours in the predawn gloom, a few strangely sober looking night owls wended their way home and screaming scooters flew through red traffic lights at speed. I held my breath waiting for a typically non-look turner to collect them, but they seemed to negotiate the journey safely, at least while I was waiting for Dan to pick me up.

Onboard, we set off to Nan Ao on the east coast, some 2 hours drive away via the long tunnel on expressway 5. We’d checked the swell reports all-round and had convinced ourselves that everything pointed to an exceptional day at this vaguely mystical break. The only other time we’d made the trip it was fantastic, so we held high hopes. Bumping onto the deserted hard sand before 6.30 we were greeted by every surfers dream: sunrise surf lines of huge size and quality peeling off a craggy point, spray back indicating an offshore wind to clean the faces and a threatening rumble as inshore rocks and boulders were tossed around and against each other.

The next eight hours were quite surreal. The first trick to get out through the murderous shore break was negotiated, and then a building swell saw us wide eyed and trepidatious as we paddled over ever higher powerful swells. We both eased into the break and our first waves confirmed that this was, indeed, massive surf. I snapped my legrope on the second wave and went in to retrieve Dan’s spare and received the first of numerous pummeling on the inner boulder surge zone. Out again, Dan was gaining more confidence and really carving a few up: I followed suit on a biggy and rode it well until I came off and somehow in the swirling power of this wave I snapped another legrope, the board careering in over the boulders and shearing off a good portion of the swallowtail on my new MR board! We got into town to find some tiny Allen keys to borrow and managed to fix the legrope and tape up the back of the board, and then out we went again. Suffice to say we got lots of very big quality waves, I got smashed up many times (including nearly puncturing my stomach with the nose of my board), but to catch these waves was an absolutely unforgettable experience. Eventually, spent physically and emotionally from the highly charged adrenalin filled atmosphere we began the drive home at 4pm. The road was blocked by landslides from the typhoon so it took us 4 hours to get back, and I dragged myself in again some 14 hours after leaving in the morning!

On Friday, I was glad Cass wanted a very lazy day as I was incapable of anything else. I had cuts, nicks and bruises all over both feet, a growing kaleidoscope of colour on my nearly pierced stomach, some wicked purple bruises on my bum and a swollen bruised underarm from gripping the board so tightly under giant walls of whitewater.

We’ve had a 4 day weekend due to the “10/10” local holiday, and boy did we need it! We’ve been going non-stop since getting back in early August and we’re both quite exhausted. Later on Friday afternoon, we wandered down to the MRT and went into town. We went east to the Xin Yi area, had a look around the big Eslite store and marveled at all the very trendy stuff. After that we strolled along the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi buildings’ avenue took in the sights and sounds of an awakening weekend evening and dined at one of our favourites, the Macaroni Grill. We had a delicious meal and shared a bottle of Petaluma Riesling, lobster ravioli and veal Parmigiana and Pannacotta with caramel sauce. We then went and had a drink at the very slick and trendy Brown Sugar jazz bar nearby before, in deference to my cut and bruised feet, decadently got a cab home.

We ventured out to see a movie on Saturday, the surprisingly agreeable “Surrogates”, then made our way over to C’est Jacques for a light lunch…still delicately cooked in the French style by the same young woman/ French trained chef/owner. Evening time we watched the wonderfully nostalgic Hey, Hey it’s Saturday reunion show, which I had downloaded. It brought back lots of memories for us and it was just like putting on a cosy pair of slippers and we were transported away from Taipei to our living room in Hamilton or Georgetown all those years ago…it was great!

Today, we slept in, read our clippings (thanks Mum!) for hours over hot raison toast and coffee, then read our books nearly all day. The day outside is finally a pleasant temperature, but windy and overcast: just the day to laze around and catch up doing next to nothing at all! Photos: lots from Nan Ao, including my damaged board. Various shots from our night in Xin Yi and a shot from our lunch at C’est Jaques. Cass is reading “The Sorrows of an American”( she says it’s a complex vision of contemporary New York life) and I’ve just finished the superb, “The Slap”.

What a devastating week for all in the Asia Pacific region. The shocking intensity of the Padang earthquake, the frightening tsunami that ripped through the low-lying Samoa and Tonga, Manila completely inundated by typhoon and flood and now super typhoon Parma bearing down monstrously on the top end of the Philippines and on its way to Taiwan.

Weather here is already squally and raining, wind whipping up the tunnel-like streets and lanes with amazingly strong gusts, the scooter only just managing to stay upright. The full force of the typhoon will not be felt for at least two-three more days, but the prelude is bad enough. Why am I riding a scooter around in these conditions you may ask?

Today is the NRL grand final and I have been down to SOGO to get some wheat bread, over to Takashimaya to get some Crown Lagers (at criminally inflated prices I might add!), then to Papa Poulet for three whole rotisserie chickens. We’re planning to butter the bread, peel the chicken pieces from the bone and basically just let the boys indulge in an old fashioned medieval feast at half time. The chicken is delicious, the ceremony never grand so we thought this would be a slightly healthier alternative to buckets of KFC or pizzas. Of course, we’d love to have the unhealthiest, but best, food of all for a football game: some Aussie meat pies. The trouble is that all our sources have gone…we’ll hope they make a comeback somewhere, some time.

The game is on at 2pm Taiwan time, with the lead up from 1.30. So, come to Taiwan and you can have an old fashioned afternoon grand final time! We’re not sure who is coming, but the regular suspects will be here, including Shaun, Wol, Lewy and Gurecki. I expect Brandon will be here along with Terry and possibly Andrew V and Bondy as well. If they all turn up, we’ll be a bit squeezy. I’m writing this in the rather odd time of the very early afternoon, because I certainly won’t feel like it later.

Just to top off our natural disasters, we were woken to a rockin’ rollin’ earthquake last night about 1.30am. We waited while the building swayed and rolled and then let our beating hearts calm down before getting back to sleep. It was a 6.3 on the Richter and had its epicenter just ssw of Hualien, unusually on land this time instead of off the coast. Somehow it produced only slight damage…the buildings here don’t look much but they can certainly withstand a good shake.

Right, I have to get off to get the ice, then pack a few beers in it before the visitors arrive. I am reading the fantastic Aussie award winner, The Slap, and Cass has switched across to my Silk Riders. Photos: I’m determined to post some from this afternoon…I hope I remember to take some in all the excitement!
P.S. Well, it's a little after all the excitement, and of course we forgot to take any photos at all! I'll post a few tomorrow of my team and some kiddies just for a bit of colour....Melbourne wins...oh no!!

No post last Sunday....sorry to readers. I just got caught up doing, well, pretty much nothing! Take a few minutes to check the video above...it gives a different perspective on Taiwan: this island is as beautiful as I think it is.

Up for an early breakfast before packing up ready for a day at the coast, I wondered how the poor old “Aubergino” would go. We love our dinted and bashed little car, Ross dubbing its indeterminate colour aubergine many years ago, with its mismatched hubcaps, permanent acid burn stains in the duco on the bonnet and the boot and many quite significant dings and depressions all over its body. Lately, the air conditioner has needed to be regassed, the plumes of smoke choking the general populace have been only momentarily arrested and its front suspension appears to have almost collapsed completely, the tiniest aberration on the road causing the most alarming clunking “bottom outs” you could possible experience! I’ve tried to be a little tenderer with her as we traverse the mountain roads, her tyres are never squealed and she is caressed into all corners but somehow the deterioration continues. This car has taken us around Taiwan on one of our greatest ever holidays and we’re reticent to admit her days are numbered.

We, did, however, make it to the north coast and a quick inspection of all the spots was a little disappointing. All the surfers had been anticipating great things this weekend as a typhoon lurked off the coast moving slowly towards Japan. It wasn’t exactly flat, but the decent size waves were spoilt by a howling onshore wind. Cass and I made the best of it and she enjoyed her perch high on the Jinshan cliff as I attempted to get a few waves out the back after surviving a ferocious shore dump to make it out. We travelled to Jinshan proper after that, but it just wasn’t good enough to tempt us out and the swim wasn’t even an option with hulking pieces of driftwood being tossed around like matchsticks in a very turgid shore break.

Our drive round to Green Ball and Baishawan (both flat) was delightful, the day really a cracker, not a cloud in the sky as the typhoon had sucked away all the extraneous atmospheric muck. As we’d never done it, but often talked about it, we stopped for lunch at one of the increasing number of very cool restaurants fronting the protected beach strip just near Sanjih town. Some readers familiar with this area of Taipei county will remember the futuristic, "Jetson" style houses fronting the beach here, a terrible folly that seemed to last just one typhoon season. A little sadly for us, they have recently all been demolished...there goes a good talking point! Our choice called “We Love” had a very interesting menu (pictured) as well as some very funky elements including egg chairs, cool music and a Harley Davidson Sportster taking pride of place in the front window. The food was good and we enjoyed the air-conditioned comfort as we watched a succession of friends take trips on their new jet ski through the huge floor to ceiling windows at the back. Onwards and homebound, we eventually pulled the poor old aubergino into her garage for another weeks rest in the mid afternoon.

Yesterday we went to the movies in the middle of the day and saw, “The Time Traveler’s Wife”. I was grumbling a little bit about the prospect of a “chic flick”, but it was surprisingly good for its genre. We like both the leads, Eric Bana and Rachel McAdam, but found Aussie Eric to be a little wooden. Cass said it was quite faithful to the book, which is one of her favorites of recent years. We lunched at one of our all time favourites, “Aubergine”, (now that’s a weird coincidence which I didn’t even realize till I typed it just now!) and then moseyed on home and had a very relaxing evening.

All the boys are getting both excited and apprehensive as the next couple of weeks approach. The football finals of both codes have given us great opportunities to socialize and enjoy the games, but we all know that as the grand finals approach, so does the dreaded “sports hiatus”! Now hjust how long is it before they bowl the first ball in that Brisbane test against the West Indies?!

Photos: sign to Little Yeliou on the north coast, Cass at Jinshan, me with the Spider Girl, a crazy sight of an emu in a north coast yard (!) and some classic “Chinglish” on our restaurant menu. Cass is now reading, and thoroughly enjoying “The Day at the Races” and I am reading a motorcycle travel recount, “Silk Riders”.

September brings football finals rolling around and that has pretty much been the focus of the weekend entertainment the last couple of weeks. Friday, we settled in at the Green to watch an AFL game, and then I made the trek up the hill to Gerry’s place for the annual Collingwood finals party on Saturday night which also includes the speeches and handover of prize money from our tipping comp. Today we went to Yingge!

We introduced our new Grade 3 team member, Dave, from Canada to the game of AFL on Friday night and he was a quick learner and even submitted himself to another bout of the same on Saturday at Gerry’s. We got out and about after that and pulled out a few old chestnuts. The next day it all seems a bit bizarre and dazzlingly non PC, but at the time, with a few beers on board, we thought we were hilarious.

Saturday loomed as a possible beach day, but we both got up kind of late and the surf was flat again, so that hit that idea on the head immediately. We were really looking forward to watching the Knights semi final against the Bulldogs on Saturday night, but it was terribly delayed here, not starting till 11 pm! I stayed for the first half at Gerry’s before bringing some tea home for Cass and we fluffed around waiting for the “real” game to come on. We were so incredibly lazy in the day on Saturday and managed to watch most of the second series of Mad Men…it’s mesmerizing. The Knights tried hard, but going into a game with two key men very badly injured was never going to be a good choice: they were brave, but we still went to bed disappointed after 1 am, the “girls” wandering around meowing their protests at being kept up so late!

We decided to make the trip to Yingge today. We previously went on the train one time when Chris and Val were visiting, but we decided to try the car today. It was an interesting trip, as always here in Taiwan: dead set, most of these people look like they got their licenses from the back of a corn flakes packet. Apart from the funny, yet at times partly frightening driving, we dealt with intermittent rain showers all the way until blue skies magically appeared at the Sansia/Yingge turnoff. The weather then went straight back to type: baking sun made more insufferable as the water heated up and produced a sauna like effect. We parked a bit out of town and walked back, remembering the basic layout, re-visiting many of the shops and generally enjoying ourselves. Cass bravely agreed to try some street food for lunch, and we both survived, although Cassy got a shocking and massive head freeze from her Mango ice sorbet. I had a couple of big bruising German sausages and then we were re0-fuelled for another go at the shops.

Cass was keen to get a set of dessert/soup dishes and had been looking around for a while. The trouble was that we found really cheap ones (which were OK, but a little too Chinesey or not Chinesey at all!) or at the other end of the scale, beautiful one off art pieces, designed to be put up on display. After looking in almost all (!!) the shops in the cute cobblestoned car free streets, Cass eventually settled on some mid range ones (still pretty cheap actually) that had a subtle blossom pattern on a sort of bluey gray background. We were keen on getting a little stone Buddha as well, but the ones we saw were just a little too cute for our liking although one rather imposing stone Buddha head might be worth another look sometime.

Purchase under arm, we wound our way back through the streets to the car and navigated our way back home. It was a 6 hour trip all up by the time we got the car swapped back over to the scooter and got ourselves back home, but an interesting sojourn for a sweltering Sunday afternoon.

Cassy is reading the book I just finished, A Day at the Races; it’s hilarious and resonates so well for us, early 80s in Australia, young adults, country towns etc. I ran out of Mum’s clippings this morning: she’s been away and unable to send fro a little while…woe is us! I didn’t send my sister Helen a card for her birthday yesterday…Hel if you’re reading, Happy B’day and sorry. Photos: all at Yingge, the red marble big cat is out of focus because I wasn’t supposed to take a shot of it….it was very stylish!

The mighty Newcastle Knights have just beaten Penrith to claim their rightful place in the finals series of the NRL for 2009 and I nearly dislocated by already sore shoulder punching the air and dancing around the loungeroom each time they scored! Could they possibly emulate their feats of 2001 when we made a flying visit home to watch them win the grand final? The chances are extremely remote, but we’ll enjoy supporting them however long they last in the series.

I’ve got a neat little segue back into Friday night here so I’ll use it! We had a couple of beers at Ulis before we met up with Lewey and Shaun at Shaun’s place to watch the first of the AFL semi-finals. It was a bit of a blowout, but we had a good time nonetheless and bantered away with all sorts of rubbish. Afterwards, Wol, Shaun, Lewey and I went to the newly named and slightly re-vamped “Soo Who” bar just round the corner and continued our conversations.

Cass and I were up early on Saturday to shake the Auburgino out of her recent lethargy and get over to the coast to check out the swell we hoped would be forthcoming. The car has been managing to convert Chung Shan Rd into a smoggier version of downtown Shanghai in recent times with a pungent plume of toxic gases billowing forth from the car every time we took it out. Apart from polluting the place, it was pretty embarrassing! Anyway, after getting the air con regassed and 4 litres of oil and a new oil filter it is much more civilised and we decided, allowed out on the road again. We met up with Dan and Nicky and family over at our little break of Pointies near the Jinshan harbour entrance and other guys we know, Scott and Brian showed up a little later. Even thought the surf was quite good, it was a bit of a worry seeing a phalanx of local mal riders joining us: they’ve been very superstitious of this place for years because of a number of drownings, but it appears our extended honeymoon of minimal crowds might be over! Cass got so hot she even went for a body surf (must have been hot!) and we had a very refreshing swim/surf. Duly cleansed in body and soul, we got back starving to a very late brekky, accompanied of course by Mum’s Herald clippings, which is our weekend tradition.

In the late afternoon/early evening we stolled down to Alleycats pizza via the new Sogo. It was very relaxed and had just cooled down enough to make it not too oppressive. Our meal was excellent as usual: Cass always has a Greek salad and some pizza and I like customizing mine with stuff like anchovies and artichoke hearts…yum! We saw another surfy mate of mine, Mark, there and had a nice chat with him and he told us he’d got some waves at the Cliff the day before. On the way home we stumbled upon our upstairs neighbours, Leon and Katherine, and had a nice long chat with them as well, mainly about our respective Christmas travel plans. We each commented that we never see each other in the building, but I suspect we both actually like it pretty much that way as well. Christmas plans are quite topical for us at the moment as we have just booked our flights to Denpasar where we will connect to another flight to the island of Sumba and the resort of Nihiwatu…but more about that later. Grabbing a stack of Wendel’s bread on the way back, we were nearly home when we spotted a big new Harley parked on the footpath…you just never know what you’ll find in Taipei.

I ventured out in the heat to get some Papa Poulet chicken and some pastrami sandwiches for lunch, while Cass did some grocery shopping and took 4 pairs of pants to be taken up at the seamstress round the corner. We had the two pairs of jeans I mentioned last week and a further pair of jeans(mine) and a pair of tailored pants that Cass had bought back home. The cost of alteration was a staggering low $500NT (about $20 Aussie) which matches the $460 NT Cass paid to get 6 items dry-cleaned last week!

That’s about it: we’re in a state of excitement about the Knights and life is just grand all-round: now, if we could just work on lowering this heat a little! Photos, trad pointyhat woman wanders past Alleycats with her cart, Harley on the path, the cats insisting on sleeping with each other despite the heat, Cass after taking a dip, an obviously named new bakery near Sogo and me getting one of a few good waves on Saturday. See also slideshow here.

You can see little Virgy is still able to relax in the heat! Her guts always seem to expand a fair bit over the big break here, and we suspect there's not a lot of exercise going on, just lots of eating and sleeping. I do understand, however, her reluctance to do anything more strenuous, as we ourselves have been loathe to drag ourselves away from the cool sanctuary of our apartment as this brutal heat spike goes on and on.

I went to book club after a few beers with Gurecki and Wal on Friday night, but wisely made an exit before the vodka shots started going down! Stupidly though, I left a bag of 2 books on the ground just outside our place and by the time I realised where I'd left them, the recycling lady had come along and snaffled them...I'll have a bit of explaining to do next time. Saturday was a very low key day for both of us, although I did set up a wireless internet router in the house. Set up sounds rather technical, where all I really did was plug in all the cords the right way, put in the set up CD and away we went. The password didn't work at first until we realised we had to key in the other "encryption key" which was a bit weird. Anyway, all's well that ends well and it was tested on Cassy's laptop out in the lounge room and on my iPod all over the apartment. We have a warp speed connection these days, and the 3 appliances running off it at once didn't seem to affect it one bit.

"Inglorious Basterds" was the pick of the flicks on Sunday so I booked some tickets online in our favourite seats, then went to pick them up on my way to the 1000 steps. Tickets duly collected, I soldiered on. It was crazy up there yesterday! There were families trying to drag up/ cajole/bribe little kiddies all the way, old people, young people, fat and skinny, sweet and smelly and the whole gamut in between. How many mental defectives could possibly want to pit themselves against these monsters in the 36 degree midday sun? Plenty! I gave up trying to post a decent time, satisfied myself with making it up and back and getting cooled down and showered before motoring off to the cinema. The picture was spot on, a Tarantino classic hit with all the hallmarks of previous films, but with more emphasis on taut tension and clever dialogue than ever before. The violence was even more graphic and horrifying, but mercifully short each time allowing a hand up to shield the eyes and a healthy "la, li, la" to dull the hearing a good antidote! Brad Pitt was a revelation: as we've known for quite some time, this guy is far more than a pretty face. You know those films that keep coming back to you the next day? Real, quality, memorable films? This is one of those for sure.

The newly opened Papa Poulet was our destination for a takeaway chicken and proprietor Chris was chuffed that so many people had visited in the past week. I scanned one of his fliers and sent it around the staff at school, knowing they would appreciate his sensational rotisserie chooks just as much as we did. The other more selfish reason is that we want the guy to stay in business...!

I've taken the car down to our mechanic today and gone through my usual spazzy set of Chinese phrases to try and get a few things done. One of the reasons we haven't ventured out for weeks is, apart from the heat, the fact that the car air conditioner couldn't cope with it. It's doing little more than fanning warm air around. Anyway, without any English, I've communicated my belief that the air con is busted or leaking, the fact that I want new spark plugs and a change of not only the oil, but also the oil filter. I hope I said this OK, because the guy seemed fascinated that I would want an oil change, going over the costings with me: don't people change their oil here?

Somewhat ironically, considering these limited successes on the language front, I've decided to cut back my Chinese lessons to once a week (hence the time to write this now after my slackness yesterday!). I must be getting too old for this language learning caper as stuff just doesn't stick like it used to, so I'm just going into maintenance mode. I reckon I know enough to get us out of trouble (or into it!) so that will do for now. Another irony is that I might even just do a little more independent study without the pressure of a lesson every few days.

Photos: Virg relaxing in style, getting a Papa chicken down near the Shi Dong market. Cassy is reading Unaccustomed Earth and David is reading A Day at the Races by Matt Dray.

Unless we’re turning into complete wimps, the temperatures in Taipei this week have been almost insufferable. We’ve just crept from one indoor air conditioned haunt to another, from home to work and back home again, from home to shop and back. The time spent in the outdoors means being exposed to 40 degree heat with an associated wet thick blanket of humidity. It’s enervating, annoying and soul destroying: anyway, you get the idea!

During the week I haven’t even ventured outdoors to do the steps, but rather relied on a pretty good indoor substitute. The vaguely air conditioned and fanned weight room at school has a couple of good treadmills where I set the incline to maximum, set a good slow jog speed and then stay on there for 20 minutes or so. I’m saturated and huffing and puffing at the end, so I think it does the trick. A bit of speedball, heavy bag and a few weights and I feel justified in crawling back to the air-conditioning! I’ll start up my Chinese lessons again this week, as quite fortuitously, my teacher has been in the States. I really wasn’t ready to commit again this week, so this little bit of extra “ease in” time has been welcome.

Cass didn’t have any extra duties this weekend, so she’s been happy to potter around at home. We did bite the bullet and expose ourselves to the midday heat today when we went downtown, just to avoid going stir crazy. We planned on getting to the south East and checking out the action, including stopping at Pie Boy for lunch and to get a few takeaway supplies. We’d found it previously on my “find a pie in Taipei” mission a few months back. Anyway, much to our great disappointment, it has closed down! In its place was a little burger joint which was also closed, not a good sign at all. We’re just hoping that he has re-located somewhere and that we’ll re-discover him somewhere else soon. After that, we traced our steps back to the station, dropped again into the bowels of the earth and traveled another stop underground to visit Tex Mex spot, “Yuma”. We had a tasty meal, but it was huge. I wondered whether we were getting old and having small appetites or perhaps we were turning American and leaving half the food on our plates? I decided the alternative was too horrific to contemplate and settled for being old!!

Designer jeans at more than 70% off on the way back saw us get a pair each. I got some for $40, but we then realized we could get a second pair for just $20 more, so Cass got a pair as well. A pair of thongs for $4 (translation: flip-flops U.S. jandals N.Z.) completed the bargains.

We always pass by a quite amazing sight on the way back home as we change trains at Taipei Main Station. On the way to the Danshui line, there is a display advertising the exquisite items available for viewing at the Grand Palace Museum. It is just a little taster of what is available, but never ceases to amaze us: there are treasures from the Ming Dynasty and earlier, all behind a very fragile looking glass barrier in the city’s main train station! Quite amazing: I imagine if this was back home it would last a few days at best.

The heat has certainly brought out the best and the worst of Taipei fashion too. On some people, baring lots of flesh is a very good summer look indeed, but others who should cover up a little for all sorts of reasons are flaunting acres of flesh in the strangest outfits you’ll ever see. I suppose you just have to take the bad with the good.

Cass and I have been watching the Ashes cricket here each night and becoming increasingly morose as the Australians hopes of winning look more and more remote. I watched a couple of sessions with Wol and Shaun, the Craw and Lewy at the Green Bar on Friday, after they arrived back from the Board party. Both Cass and I forsook the charms of the night this year, and apparently it was a good decision as it was a bit of a fizzer. The weather map shows little relief for the coming week, so we’ll just have to grin and bear it. Photos: Cass posing in front of antique treasures at Taipei station, and a few more shots of our time back home, as we only took the one photo this week!

Typhoon Morakot cut a devastating swathe through the middle and especially the southern mountain villages of Taiwan. Its ferocity was such that, unusually, it actually made news in Australia, prompting concerned calls and emails from family and friends. We were relatively untouched up here in the north, the high winds and driving rains just providing inconvenience rather than distress. Our school pulled together an amazingly quick relief support effort, the results of which can be read about here. It’s strange being back in a country with lots of minor and sometimes major natural interventions: our paintings and photos were all at odd angles on the wall when we got back indicating at least one pretty decent earthquake in our absence.

The cloying heat of the past weeks has been compounded by a lack of wind and cloud cover and a watch settingly accurate tropical downpour at 3.55 every afternoon: It doesn’t last the same amount of time always, but it always starts then! Cass and I somehow forgot that this afternoon when we dilly dallied just a touch too long down at Carrefour and got caught. It was a fairly boring little shopping run, but we checked out the whole store to check out their latest and greatest. With a succession of high end stores opening up locally in recent months, everyone has had to lift their game to attract customers. Carrefour certainly had a few surprises and Cass was delighted to get a few more French style things than we’ve been used to.

Cassy had to go into work officially this morning to do her second half day extra. She’s not too worried as she gets paid and they ended up getting lots done which wouldn’t have been possible in the helter skelter of a normal day in the first full week back. She and I have both met our kids and can report that they’re as delightful as usual, with the odd quirky one just to make life interesting! I have added two classes to my load this year as the K-12 role I’ve done for years has evaporated. I’m kind of excited actually, as one of the classes is a support class where I’ll have my big group of kids in my own class and most importantly, under my rules for the first time in 8 years! It’s hard being a support teacher, team teacher etc all the time as you never get to put that individual stamp on classroom management etc…should be great.

Cass is tasked with getting all her kiddies working almost exclusively on their laptops as the school rolls out the next phase of the “1 to 1” strategy. She will be using nearly all digital tools during her lessons, and the assignments and exercises and activities will be virtually paperless. It’s a big challenge for the kids, but perhaps an even bigger challenge for the teachers…let’s face it; the kids are real digital natives. So Cass is on a fast learning curve to be the ringmaster in a technologically advanced circus and will be using her laptop and theirs, the data projector, the net and other tools to teach her content from now one….a big challenge!

While she was in at school, I braced myself to hit the 1000 steps again. My first effort back last week was very poor, but at least today I managed to beat that time by 40 seconds, even with Sunday stair traffic and a beastly heat. It’s just so beautiful and peaceful up there: we’re really lucky to have this national park right on our doorstep.

Last night we went up to Thai Town and had a great meal (as usual there) and wandered around in Shinkong Mitsukoshi soaking up the Saturday night vibe for a while. We discovered that the 2nd floor of one of the buildings has been turned over exclusively to a food court: don’t tell me we have even more restaurants to check out (!). We had a great weekend and are steeling ourselves to handle a full week with kids this week…we’re anticipating that, like the weather, it will be fairly enervating!! Photos: at Thai Town and some shots on the steps. Cass is reading "Night"