All I can say is that sometimes it's just better to follow your nose rather than rely on state of the art global positioning systems. After being led a merry dance to the east then the south west of Taiwan's great megalopolis, tip-toeing along giant high wires flying this way and that over the city, we were quite prepared to ditch our satellite navigation and stick to tried and true methods of finding our way around:namely, the inner compass!

In fairness, I hadn't given "Girly", our GPS, much of a chance to succeed, punching in a city I had saved which was somewhere near where we wanted to go. It basically just sent us along main roads which were along the shortest distance. This would be fair enough except they were major overhead expressways slicing through the scycrapers of a very crowded innercity on a Sunday morning. Our destination, Shimen Reservoir, was on an offshoot road from the main north south freeway, south of Taipei and after an unexpected, but nevertheless quite thrilling detour, we finally got back on track and arrived at our destination.

On the way in to the reservoir we passed the second flush of rice for the year in enclosed, drowned paddies. The plant is an impossible green, succulent and fresh, stitched into the field tuft by tuft in perfect military lines by bent farmers in pointy straw hats. The countryside quickly becomes bucolic as the highrise satellites of Taipei city fade from view and the people are rough-hewn and unsophisticated. It is quite refreshing actually to remember that all Taiwanese are not as flashy and slick as the ones we deal with on a daily basis!

A street of country market stalls was so Taiwanese, with tiny charcoal grills a bed for spitting, sweet pork sausages being turned and tended by betel nut chewing, wizened men. Bonsai trees were arranged on plastic stools in order of seniority and hand-made clay teapots all pointed their spouts toward the great lake beyond. Miniature electronic game consoles sat in lines each chirping their own pinging song and various "special and delicious foods" were displayed proudly on tiered benches where hawkers offered us little pungent samples which we declined with a smile and a wave. Wow, we were really out in the countryside!

The reservoir itself was quite beautiful and the runoff from the spillway at the bottom frighteningly powerful and impressive. We were able to drive in for a small fee and stop the car at various spots around the lake to take in the views: it was just as well as rather annoying violent rain squalls had a habit of dumping on us at regular intervals, usually when were furthest from the shelter of the car! Down at the dock of the upper reservoir bobbed a line of tourist sightseeing boats and as the gorge looks pretty spectacular, it might be an option for a future trip: they did warn, however, that boat patrons must wear a lifejacket at all times!

The trip home was long but uneventful although we did pause and wonder yet again at the method of entering and leaving the tollgates on the expressway. Most of the length of the freeway there are at least 4 lanes, sometimes 5. When you approach the tollgates, however, the lines to the lanes gradually fade away and you can select a tollgate from about 15 available. Some are for electronic payment, some for ticket and some for cash: imagine the chaos this would cause at an Australian tollgate! The speed limit of 110 km seems to exist right up until about 100 metres from the gates, where people dramatically slow, brandish a ticket (in my case), never stop, but roll through as the attendant snatches it from your hand. As you leave the gate, a free-for-all ensues. You need to accelerate to top speed straight away and grimly hold your line as the 15 gates converge back into the four lanes.....crazy, but somehow, it all works just fine!

Photos: Weetbix promotion at the supermarket, interesting snacks, an electronic Mahjong machine (!), Cass with the full "closet camels" ready for a refill and various shots of our trip to the reservoir. Dave is reading "Supercoach" and Cass is still reading "The Marriage Plot".

To say we had a magnificent holiday would be the understatement of the century! Stellar weather in the main, all the essential ingredients of a fantatstic break were evident: family, friends, places, weather, food etc. We were served a surfeit of each element and tasted just a little too much of each, so much so that our appetite for more was whetted. By the time we left, we were salivating to keep the good times rolling, just one last tasty morsel to savour before we had to return. As we commented later, this holiday's only drawback was that it was just a little too long: we were hungry for more of our Australian life.

A week away on the Harley, a week to visit Ross and Ainsley in NZ were the exclamation marks to break up the visit while a daily "grind of the Bathers' Way 6 km walk and frequent visits to and by our parents were the constants. We managed to squeeze in plenty besides, but it was just so comforting to re-connect with our real home and not work for a stretch! This week, after a week of meetings and the first day back with the kiddies we definitely know we're back on the treadmill!

Not long after we returned we had the unusual opportunity of attending our second Taiwanese wedding. At the Grand Hyatt's lavish ballroom, the ceremony glistened with all the kitsch pomp and ceremony the Taiwanese can muster. Julie is a delightful bride for Craig, who worked for many years at school before becoming Taiwan's triathlon director and coach. They have now moved to Phuket...hard life?! It was a great day to catch up with lots of colleagues before we hit the campus proper and we did a little bit of celebrity spotting having our photo taken with Janet, and wined and dined our way through the afternoon.

I had three days of intensive WIDA training after the first two days of meetings last week, so feel as if my brain has been sucked out by a giant with a straw inserted in my head! Cass had a relatively relaxing introduction and was much better prepared for the influx of our new intake of students today. I felt like I was only just keeping my head above water today and really believe that this holiday has turned by brain to mush: I can't even seem to be able to write successfully anymore: let's hope that improves for our long-suffering readers...I promise I'll work on it!

Photos are a tiny selection from the best break ever and a few of the wedding. See you next week with a touch better articulation and fluency (I hope).

This is the link to the Australia June July photo album. Cassy is reading The Marriage Plot and I am reading Deadfolk.

A soggy sock of a day here in Taipei was a metaphor for how keen we were to strap on the gladrags and head off to work at the crack of dawn for one final week. The sky was leaking a steel grey sheet with some velocity, and there's still a damp and tepid soaking in store for us before we get home this afternoon. Teachers are alternately glum and ecstatic, depending on whether they're contemplating the week ahead or the holiday at the end of it. The kids seem to have entered that special twilight zone reserved for all schoolkids at the end of an academic year: they haven't completely dropped the veneer of proper respectfulness but it's slipping off them like a thin coat of varnish that hasn't quite dried.

We've continued our social whirl that dances around us for just a few weeks at the beginning and ends of each semester. On Wednesday, we had Brandon, Wal and Angela round to watch the first, highly controversial state of origin at our place. It was a highly addictive, exciting game and everyone relished the action and sampled some of the Maya pizzas we'd got in for the occasion. Washed down with a couple of beers, it was a great mid-week interlude.  The "Nation" met in predictable fashion on Friday as we eschewed the delights of the organised fun of the lower school end-of-year party. It was probably a wise decision as various stories filtering back to our ears pretty much confirmed our worst prejudices, including the fact that one of the buses broke down out there leaving more than a few stranded at Danshui, scrambling for the MRT or taxis!

On Saturday, Cass met up with an inner circle of her book club, and these dilettantes of all hand-held  portable baggage then proceeded downtown to the "bag store", just down the alley from the main exit of Chungshan MRT. Cass just enjoyed looking this time, as she is pretty much awash with new to newish bags at the moment. The others, although in similar surfeit, still managed to load up with a few fine items! They had fun on the train down and back and Cass picked up her usual delicious morsels of gossip to feed me tidbits the following day.

I went to my team leader's house for dinner on Saturday evening and we were treated not only to her new house which is fairly spectacular, but also to a lavish feast which would have taken hours to prepare and many dollars to purchase the ingredients. It was a very lovely gesture: certainly not a pre-requisite for her job. We have some people leaving our team (including me as I move to grade 5 and 4 next year), most notably Dave and Michelle, both of whom I've worked with for the past few years. I've enjoyed the collaboration with both but will especially miss the friendship with "Young Dave" (as Cassy calls him). Much to my horror, we figured out he actually could have been our son if we had been that way inclined in the initial bursting buds of our relationship! Anyway, it's been refreshing to have a young man as a close friend: it gives a way different perspective of the world....(for example, am I really that cynical?!)

Sunday saw us enjoy the delights of seven British acting veterans strutting the big screen with all the skill and aplomb that comes with that sort of experience. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was just a magnificent romp, and brought back memories for me of the same backstreets of Jaipur I had traveled through and in and around just Christmas before last. The colours were brighter and the din softened, but there is no way you could capture that particular Indian city aroma! Inspired by the movie we went straight to the Spice Shop for an Indian afternoon feast to extend our mid Asian escape! 

This coming week promises little different in terms of ant-hill industrious urgency. We have to get stuff fixed for the girls, such as instructions for their carer, litter, food, coverings etc as well as get ourselves properly organized for a couple of months hiatus from our life here. Car, motor scooter, plants, etc etc. all need to be taken care of in varying degrees. Apart from all that, we still have to look after our increasingly restless charges for another week of lessons!

Photos today: One of my classes in last week zany mode. These "Instagram" style photos are very Doris Day in the lens department which is not such a bad thing for my wrinkled and furrowed melon! Cass spotted her favourite car outside school the other day and I finally got some rare backstage, access all area passes from Kiss concerts in America framed up.

Thanks for putting up with our endless stream of mind-numbing minutia for another year: this blog is taking a break till at least August 12. See ya!

As the end of the academic year looms large, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate a hectic work and social life. The work piece demands report writing, project grading and dealing with slightly fractious kiddies while the social calendar is increasingly inked in on the weekends and leaking inexorably back to Thursday or even Wednesday as people strive to fit in a last "going away party" or dinner or catch-up. I went to something three nights in a row this weekend and Cass had her last book club meeting of the year as well.

Just down the road in Shilin, close to the petrol station, is an increasingly chic little street which leads to the temple "with the white goats". On this strip is an amazing golf cafe which has installed some very hi tech state of the art video golf technology. Real clubs are swung and balls are hit against a screen while a sensor on the ground picks up the exact nuance of every shot. The virtual ball then flies to the correct part of the course you hit it to, and on it goes again. Depending on your position, the ground will tilt and elevate to simulate your exact lie: it is quite freaky and the golfers tell me it is scarily accurate, at least for the long game. This was our social engagement on Thursday afternoon as the golfers prepared for the big divisional championship on the weekend.

Friday saw a meeting of the Polish Nation Intellectual Forum and the golfers wisely sensed their performance may well be affected by too large an intake, so we had a pretty quiet but longish night. The following day, I met them down at Patio 84 for what we hoped would be celebratory drinks: as it turned out, John, Wal, Dave and Gurecki failed to convert all their opportunities this year and the upper school team pipped them. They were fine with the result, but Brandon enjoyed rubbing it in just a little too much!! Anyway, it was pretty funny to see and hear the banter as the stories from the day became ever more fanciful as the night rolled on!

Cassy's book group picked their books for the coming year and it is an eclectic mix sprinkled with prize winners and old favourites and the authors and subject matter spread well over a large number of continents. They are even going to add a couple of translated Taiwanese novels to their selection this year! As usual, the culinary skills of the hostess were to the fore and Paige excelled herself with dish after dish which the "girls" consumed with great relish. I even scored some takeaway lemon muffins the next day: if they were any indication of the quality of the rest of the food on the night, they had their taste buds massaged and caressed.

Cassy's faithful deep red briefcase which we bought in the alleys of Nimes over a decade ago has finally succumbed to an everday work regime. It probably would have survived longer, but the extra strains of a laptop in the last few years saw its lock mechanism and associated flap pretty much just wear out. She has bought a jazzy new number from Yves St Laurent that will do the trick, as it has room for her school stuff as well as laptop and grading, yet could also double as a large handbag if necessary.

Earler in the week, the annual cacophony emanating from the temple just around the corner, erupted in typical fashion, discordant whining of traditional instruments just an entree to a main meal of the most jack-hammering, jarring, ear-splitting din one could possibly imagine!  If it lasted just a few minutes it would have been vaguely more bearable, but it went for hours! I've described the scenes at the temple in these pages before: young men whip themselves into a delirium, partly induced by beer and beetle nut and partly from the sheer pandemonium ensuing from the dancing, marching, drumming and fireworks. The brave or the silly amongst them then rake steel forks along the tops of their tongues till blood flows freely, the glistening expectorant then furiously jettisoned towards the baying crowd......Great fun!!!

I'll write another entry next weekend, then might put this baby to sleep for its (and my) annual hiatus: my brain will be officially switched off in just two weeks' time. Photos: the golf boys resplendent in their uniforms, curious sights abound on the streets: this time, huge bottles of curing fruits. A shot I took in the rain at Camp Taiwan a few weeks back, Cass in the temple park with part of the marching paraphernalia (note the bag!), various gods and dragons awaiting storage for another year and a last shot which I've shamelessly stolen from the internet. This last shot features the "Moon Bridge" at Dahu Park, Neihu....seems like an outing destination for next year, don't you think? Also, check the video above for just a tiny taste of the "tongue lashing festival" fireworks!

The annual middle school play extravaganza was on this weekend, so Cass was awash in mascara and foundation, lipstick and eye shadow in the glow of the footlights over Thursday, Friday, Saturday and even a final Sunday matinee. She really has this gig down to a fine art now and although the time spent this week has been exhausting, she has definitely honed her performance over the years. Her team of girls is slick, well trained and independent and she often welcomes back veterans of the process from previous years who can give the novice makeup artists the benefit of their experience.  Cass took some great shots this year on my urging as I thought it would be interesting to see her backstage annual job: don't they give an interesting perspective?


I had a book club meeting on Friday night and as is the tradition with our final one for the year, we took back all the books we had lying around that we'd failed to return during the year: I found six that I hadn't taken back! Michael, as host, also re-instituted various musical themes and we reveled in a few hilarious choices that people would play at their funeral, favourite songs of all time etc. His music system is something to behold and it is a highlight in and of itself. I'm not sure of the technical specifications, but this thing almost launches off like a space shuttle when the volume is pumped up and bands sound like they are performing on stage at stratospheric volume right in front of you. I'm not sure what the neighbours made of all this, but we were pretty excited! It was a bitter sweet meeting in some ways: Michael (a different one), who started back in 2001 with me is finally moving on and young Dave, with whom I've shared a close personal and professional relationship for the past few years is going back to Canada. It was encouraging to see him looking so well and even having a couple of beers: he's definitely on the road to recovery.


There was yet another farewell party for dave and Tobey on Saturday and it was hosted at Wally and Molly's house. I swung round to Wol's place on the way as he wasn't sure where it was and he and his girlfriend Annie hopped on their scooter and followed mine there. We had a nice time for an hour or so before I decided to exit stage left: when the number of kids outnumber the adults by a fair margin and all of them are bombing in and out of a tiny swimming pool screaming loud enough to raise the dead, it's time for me to leave! Besides, I wanted to see my darling before she again headed off into the night with her "MirrorImage" shirt and bag of potions and lotions. I got some takeaway on the way back and we enjoyed that together before she had to go.

We met up at Eddy's Cantina at the end of her matinee performance on Sunday for a kind of lunch/dinner affair. We were both starving at this point and ravenously attacked our dishes when they arrived! It's always a great meal here: we're so lucky as we used to have to travel all the way to the hills behind Danshui for Eddy's until he opened his branch here in Tienmu....ahh spoilt.

Our evening was so pleasant, partly becuase of the perfect weather and temperatures, partly because we both had a chance to phone chat with our mothers for Mothers' Day and partly because we could sleep in an extra half hour as a PD day at school meant no kids! Usually, the lower school has every hour of the day accounted for with some expert or other giving us the latest buzz, but mercifully today, it has fallen in line with the other divisions and given us report writing time. I've done a first draft of mine, so I'm writing this instead!

Photos: a rather large and interesting ground dwelling bird in the temple park on the way to school, book-ended with a shot of tiny starlings in a nest waiting for their mother to feed them. These nests are dotted along Chung Shan Rd on the way to school, tucked up under awnings and signs. All the shots in between are of the production, with a slide show up top.

After an age of waiting, we were finally gifted a gorgeous spring weekend, dappled light and sun together with a refreshing breeze and a perfect temperature: and it lasted all weekend! There's something about weather like this that can lift the most deflated mood from a slough to a quiet euphoria, not that we were experiencing anything quite like the former. Despite a crush of end-of-year work with grades and reports and rapidly approaching deadlines, we've managed to maintain our usual high level of life enthusiasm, partly I suspect, because an extra long holiday looms invitingly just ahead.

I haven't seen an Olympics properly since Sydney in 2000. There, just before our overseas odyssey began, we saw lots of television coverage and were lucky enough to attend more than a few significant events. One of my minor claims to fame is being able to recite the hosting city of the Olympics for this century as well, mainly because I've always been fascinated with this greatest of sporting contests. Taiwan doesn't place any emphasis on this spectacle at all, and Athens and Beijing slipped past with barely a half hearted salute, a few games of table tennis or Tae Kwon Doo featuring Taiwanese athletes the exception.

I was stoked, therefore, when we discovered that due to a calendar recalibration here at school, we were gifted an extra week's holiday this year. This would mean we could be home for the first week or so of the London games. After much consternation we were able to extend our break by a week, the main trouble being our redemption air tickets being difficult to move. By the way, don't anyone ever say that frequent flyer miles' redemption is a myth, or unobtainable. This is the 4th time we've flown on miles to Australia and return and we've also upgraded to business a few times. You just have to spend a lot of money on your credit card and enlarge your carbon footprint mightily! Anyway, after countless fruitless and frustrating sessions on the phone in a queue, I went down to the Cathay Pacific office downtown to try to sort things out. The staff there were sympathetic and, in a universal truth, respond well to politeness and patience rather than belligerence and anger. Just an hour or so later, I had an employee on the phone confirming that they'd made the change: they'd even bumped us a grade to the new premium economy on return...satisfying!

We went down to indulge in Cassy's favourite treat for a twilight meal in the balmy Saturday evening temps at Wendel's Backerei. At this famous German style restaurant we ate our favoured smoked salmon salads, melt-in-the-mouth sauteed mushrooms before we both elected to have the grilled beef fillet steak with breaded broccoli sides, pepper sauce and a tower of gnocchi and spinach. Cass brought along a half bottle of Veuve Cliquot to slake her thirst and I had just a sip or two! It was a wonderful meal and we had a very relaxing time, and we were able to get the bread supply for the week at the bakery attached as well. Cassy had also ordered a scrumptious tart for us to pick up, which she'd claimed from a loyalty card at the bakery: it too turned out to be absolutely delicious when we sampled a slab later on that night and again on Sunday. On the way home, I dashed in to Carrefour to get some mundane household supplies while Cass warmed the marble bench outside and watched the world go by.

We just luxuriated in the splendid weather again on Sunday and I again braved the 1000 steps. A misnomer of some proportion as it turned out because on my unofficial count going back down, there are actually 1420 steps of varying gradients and depths! On the path up top on my warm down, I heard some ominous rustling, grunting and barking as a troop of Formosan Macaques foraged and pillaged in the bamboo stands amongst the forest just off the path. I was quick to hustle through that section: those guys are scary!

Back home to an afternoon of disappointing Newcastle Knights, which in fact, proved to be the only sour note in an otherwise well orchestrated concert of a weekend. School today brought with it a crash to earth: strange requests which will demand more of our time and a gratuitous meeting after hours just to top it off!

Photos: a serious Dave discusses some school issues with colleague Dave, steps shots, girls in a basket, a shot of the petrol station (which I'll discuss in subsequent blogs...quite different and interesting!) the Honda gathering dust in the garage (we're walkers, scooterers and trainers here in Taipei) and Cass enjoying our twilight feast at Wendel's.