One of the world's Youtube "5 minutes of fame" sensations was recruited to spend a week with our kiddies this week gone. John J has had a fleeting burst of "fame" as the double dream hands man, and has appeared on all the fluffy American shows like Ellen and America's Got Talent( where he was buzzed out rapidly in ignominious fashion!). I must say he was pretty good; even though he acted like a total goose throughout his short tenure, the kids were eating out of his hands. Anyone who can get a full auditorium of primary school kids hopping and a-bopping like he did has a rare talent. I took a few videos of the fun, starting with this and ending with this one. There are even more on Taipei Life's Youtube channel which is here.

Well, we're in a euphoric haze after the Aussies slaughtered the Poms in the return Ashes series first test in Brisbane. We were glued to the action for most of the weekend and only strayed away when there was a break in play or stumps were declared (3 pm our time). This meant a very subdued weekend in regard to daily excursions, but we did manage a hop, skip and jump across to Eat Burger and SOGO on Saturday afternoon/evening.

Even though we enjoyed a rare weekend of slouching around home and telly gazing, it's rare for us and I usually feel the need to get out and do something active or interesting on at least one of the days of the weekend. Feeling a little slovenly, I took stock of our activity meter and realized that we probably do pretty well most of the time. I do approximately 500 push-ups each and every week, get myself up the 1000 steps at irregular intervals and across to the coast to hit the surf occasionally. Cass pumps some iron on alternate days for her shoulders, biceps and triceps and does a massive cardio/anaerobic workout every Saturday by lugging all our shopping back from the supermarket through the park, across the bridge and through another park home (and before you say anything, I offer to help ALL the time, but the offer is politely refused!) Added to that are our Youbike adventures and our great long walks when we go downtown. The most constant and valuable exercise of all however, is our 40 minute walking commute each day. It's no chore: we rev up for the day ahead in the morning, debrief on the way home and never fail to spot some uniquely Taiwanese quirkiness or two daily!

Just because of this most magnificent healthy living we went down to Eat Burger on Saturday night to dilute some of our hard work! Wow, this burger is great....the freshness of the ingredients, the flavours etc. keep us coming back. The restaurant itself, as well as the nearby SOGO, have all their Christmas lights and trees going full on, despite the fact it is so far away and they have absolutely no cultural or religious link to this celebration at all: it is however, I suppose, yet another way to try and prise money from the consumer wallet. They got a few of our loose coins for dinner as well as for a Heat Tech scarf I bought at Uniqlo for my Christmas trip.

Where are we off to at Christmas break? Cass is making her fifth trip to France, this time reprising for the third time her TGV touring trip of three different French regions with her Mum. They will visit Paris, Lille, Strasbourg and Rheims this time. I suggested that she must have covered all areas of the country by now, but Cass begs to differ! Cass has all her fast train tickets bought and they have been delivered to us here. She'll meet Valerie in Hong Kong and they'll fly together to Paris. I've recently decided to go and see my old mate Gurecki in Nagasaki and check out his brand new school and home. I'll arrive in Fukuoka, spend a little time there and travel to Nagasaki. On my arrival home (mid-afternoon Christmas day) I plan to do a little east coast surfing tour here in Taiwan if I get motivated. The Boxing Day test, however, might tempt me to spend a little time at home though!

Photos: kid's party at school, road crossing, park renovations, kids in my room hard at work, SOGO and Eatburger Christmas and John J. I also included a map of the new and proposed MRT lines in the city: a new line linking our line all the way through to Xin Yi and Taipei 101 (no changes) just opened on Sunday....we'll check it out soon!

Sorry to my adoring readership of multitudes (!) that I didn't get this post out as expected yesterday. I was ensconsed in what might actually gain the title of most boring, day-long meeting of the year if such an award were being handed out. Suffice to say I had no spare time and by the time we got home I was "mentally drained"! This late posting will be severely truncated as I just have a very small window in which to write.

We ate at Din Tai Feng during the week and the dumplings and xia long bao were as exquisite as ever. The intricacy and uniformity of each one beggars belief and the perfect temperature at which they arrive is also part of a military precision. To remove the bamboo lids from the steaming serve at the table, knowing that the soup contained in each xia long bao will be at a perfect temperature, piping hot but not scolding, is a neat trick. The last bun can be lifted from the cotton mat just before it cools and sticks which would allow the soup to burst forth: also an amazing timing feat. We love this place!

My latest piece of memorabilia arrived back from the framers mid-week as well and I am stoked with it. Louis Armstrong played the Cave Nightclub/Restaurant (Vancouver) back in early 1963 and signed this handbill at that time. I had it framed simply with a wider black mat, simple black frame with a narrow immediate mat of white to offset the aging handbill itself: it looks great!

We had a wonderful day on Sunday. We roused ourselves relatively early to get showered and dressed and out for breakfast. Initially we planned on eating near the cinema then going to see a film, but our chosen destination, JB Diner, had seats only at a common bench. We decided to get across to the cinema, book our tickets for later in the day then scooter downtownish, across the Fulin bridge to the relatively new "1Bite2Go". It is a classic urban reno in very modern style, hinting at modern industrial style with its big black light fittings, exposed steel roof trusses and big open warehouse feel. It's a little like a mini aircraft hanger adorned with quirky and interesting photos on every available wall space and the tables diner style with tomato sauce, mustard, tabasco, salt and pepper all on hand in giant size. The breakfast were sublime and Cassy's french toast with home-made strawberry sauce was melt-in-the-mouth while my big fry up breakfast was just right for the time and place!

We scootered home and did this and that before taking up our appointment at the cinema for "Captain Phillips". It was an extraordinary, tension-filled, hand held camera rush of an experience, with Tom Hanks delivering a stand-out performance I might have guessed was beyond him. It was a thrilling ride and we both highly recommend it!

Photos: our local temple lantern looked pretty in the twilight, Cass catching the first of her mushroom vegetarian dumplings, "beer bites" at Ulis on Friday, 1Bite2Go shots as well as Satchmo's distinct and bold signature from the early 60s.

I've enjoyed a scintillating day today as the bi-annual round of testing for my kids gets underway. We're off class all week to get the tests done, as the majority of them need to be done "one-on-one". I'm brain dead with a throbbing headache after spending all day saying the exact same thing and getting pretty much the same reply in the initial speaking and listening tests. Oh well, just 4 more days to go!

After our house was broken into last July when we were in Australia, we've bolstered security in various ways. We've got a safety deposit box for a cache of Cassy's jewellry and various other ingenious spots around the house where things can be secreted away from prying thieves. We changed the lock on the giant outer steel door to a quadruple lock combination, which, while a pain to lock and unlock, is pretty much impregnable. The last piece in this Houdiniesque parade of steel security was the replacement of the old wooden inner door with a steel security replacement.

If some magician manages to get through the outer door (which would take an oxy-acetylene torch or equivalent) they now have to deal with a solid steel inner door with a steel door frame bolted about a foot into the surrounding walls. We stayed home for about 4 hours for the installation of this superhero of doors on Saturday. It was an amazing operation involving three men, precision fitting the new after mass destruction of the old door and frame. It entailed a whole lot of drilling and bashing before subsequent filling and finessing. The lounge room was an unholy mess as old mate decided that our marble floor was a good spot to make his cement slurry to fill in around the door frame.....ohhh! Cass and I did an industrial cleanup later and got the inner and outer doors and surrounds cleaner than they've probably ever been!

After all that effort, we decided the only reward was a trip downtown to the noteworthy and oft-visited Romano's Macaroni Grill. The exquisite fare at this establishment is always of the same sublime quality, the service outstanding and the quirky house singers always give us some unusual entertainment. Last time a tiny opera singer with a huge voice graced the dining room, while this time it was a honey-throated young man soprano playing a ukelele! Good fun.

The trip down was a bit more than we wanted after our busy day and we got crushed onto the third of three trains. After swaying with the crowd who were packed in like sardines in a tin, we demurred on the return underground trip and lashed out on a taxi door-to-door for the trip home.

Sunday was the last soak of dripping humidity for the season we hope...it was a moist mop of a thing, and we sweltered for most of the day before relenting and switching on the air-conditioner. Today and the rest of the week are supposed to be composed of "sprinkles" or "showers" and lovely autumn temperatures around the mid 20s....at last!

Photos: The escalator between trains two and three on Saturday night (it was only 5.30 p.m.!), Macaroni Grill, some of my kids hard at work last week, and the new "impregnable barricade"!

In this age of teaching where I have a laptop tablet, an iPad, a document camera, a data projector, and an Apple TV in most classes, as well as a smart-board in others along with various remotes, electronic pointers and electronic data capability coming from every portal, it was refreshing to see one of my fifth grader's "choice" pieces last week. She bypassed all the electronic wizardry at her disposal, eschewed the PowerPoint and the Prezi or Sliderocket presentations and unashamedly rejected the internet as her source of text and graphics. Instead she used real books, synthesized the information adroitly, and designed the most wonderful poster to which she spoke. It's a beautiful thing in an educational world seemingly bedazzled by electronic tools and tricks: the other kids were bewitched by this "different" presentation and were planning to do something similar for their own next pieces!

I've always been one of the first to embrace some new tool or technology in either my professional or personal life, a trait innately imprinted from my dad and shared by at least one of my siblings (hi Hel!). I'm an eager up-taker of the latest and greatest phone, computer, tablet, stereo, camera etc and find that "new toy" to be almost irresistible at times. My drawers and cupboards provide a sad indictment of my cavalier approach to old models, with circuit boards of once glittering cellphone and iPad technology, leads and power cords, screens and chips, all littering these murky spaces like cars about to crushed in a junkyard compactor.

That said, the gratuitous use of electronic gadgets in education continues to perplex me a little. Even IT teachers like to repeat the mantra that these shiny new objects are just tools to get the job done towards a learning goal, not the goal itself. When administrators get their sparkling hi tech presents they are so enamored of them, so loathe to let them sit idle for any longer than the battery takes to charge, that they start to use them as the goal itself. I begin to wonder if that is why reading and writing scores across the world appear to be falling, sliding inexorably year by year. Are we using these jewels of technology just as dazzling baubles, not letting kids sit, think, infer and produce like we used to? I'm still a fan of my toys, but I think some teachers and administrators become so blinded by the light that they can't see the wood for the trees. Enough tired idioms for now?!

We had a super weekend as per usual! Eddie's Cantina was at the end of our Sunday stroll, so we indulged in an early dinner. The "pencil school" near our place is eponymously named (by us at least!), and Amelia Earhart done "old-school" style. I'm reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell and Cassy is reading Dear Life by Alice Munro

On Sunday, we took a stroll in the neighbourhood to take advantage of the stellar weather of bright sunshine and wafting cool zephyrs. The park and courtyards of the SOGO complex, known as Dexing Park, are artfully designed and sculpted by bushes, tiny grass-coated rolling hills and established trees for some shade and interest. The open space is cloistered by Lego-like blocks of apartments, department stores and banks which marvellously have just appeared in the past short while after a couple of years hidden behind green corrugated iron fences, beyond which milling ant communities of workers scurried and worried over the construction of the glass shrouded main buildings.

We bought some sandwiches from Flavor Field (their spelling!) and drinks from 7/11 before settling at an outdoor table to enjoy some people-watching and soak up some vitamin D. Families with little kids were entertained by a macro-cephalic "Happy Lamb" who was accompanied by some daggy assistants who were necessary to support his ballooning head in the swirling breezes. The assistants with their idiotic head-ware, ranged from being embarrassed with their costume to being embarrassing as they embraced their strange look with skipping and singing and giggling. Kids ran too fast and fell over with attendant parents rushing to pick them up and dust them off, dogs trotted and frolicked, and couples cooed to each other in hushed songs as they ate and drank in the sunshine.

On Saturday we'd been to Wendel's Backerie to experience their sensational melt-in-your-mouth high end steak. It is quite an exquisite meal and we can't recall having a better steak anywhere in the world: a big call, I know! It's partly the lead-up to the main course which sets it apart. A glass of bold, meaty red for me and a classic Margarita for Cass is followed by our shared entrees:  a plate of mixed freshly sauteed mushrooms with a couple of bruschettas and a trellis pattern of balsamic on the plate, along with a smoked salmon salad, lettuce tomato, olives, cucumber of the most generous proportions. The steaks are fist high and cooked to perfection inside and out with a rich peppercorn sauce, tiny broccoli are coated with crumbs and an egg and potato mini flan is surrounded by cherry tomatoes....ahh!

The scooter had to be kick-started into action afterwards and the starter motor appeared shot. Never knowing your luck in the big city, we called past my little regular neighbourhood mechanic on the off-chance he was still open on a Saturday night. Not only was he open, but after some rudimentary Chinese explanations and some dramatic over-acting, we were asked to come back in half an hour. We left the bike and had a fantastic brew at the Coffee Museum which has just moved to a location round the corner from us, arriving back right on time to a new starter motor, new spark plug and even an adjusted brake, all for the princely sum of NT$650 ( a little over $20 Australian: how will we ever cope back home?!)

Photos: Cass had her regular stint at the manicurists pre-conference time, so her nails are on show above. Virgil is interested in one of her conference outfits, Wal had a disastrous time getting his kids to make pottery Halloween pumpkins, Margaritas, SOGO parkland and the mercurial monkey, Chee Chee, appears to be in love (at least according to one of the kids!)

"A life unexamined is not worth living". I was finally able to overcome my mental blank in Lynn's presence during the week when she dropped in for a final visit, dropping off a bottle of "Bundy" in the process. I was able to fill her in on some of the goss around the hallways as well as fill in the blanks to my speech a couple of weeks ago. I gave her a succinct version of the rest of the speech as it was originally intended so at least the main recipient was able to hear the proper version! The Socratic ideology that this quote embodies sums up Lynn';s entire approach to her personal and professional life, so I was really pleased to get a second chance to let her know how impressed I've always been with that.

Cass and I checked out a new ramen shop just round the corner from us mid-week and it was pretty good. I did leave a little unfilled, so next time I'll order a couple of extras to round out the meal. This type of Japanese dish was the one I ate voraciously in my time in Japan, stopping in for lunch most days at a truck stop on the 82nd highway in Sakaki machi to get my big bowl of shoyu ramen. We'll be back to this new restaurant!

I had parent conferences on Thursday and Friday and Cassy will have hers at the end of this week. The parents at this school are, generally speaking, an absolute delight. I again experienced a very smooth experience, even though a number of my charges have significant learning deficits: the parents are just so incredibly supportive and not seeking to lay blame for any shortcomings their children might be exhibiting: refreshing!

We sliced through a press of humanity on Saturday evening and braved the MRT to get two trains downtown. The trains arrive almost nose to tail in peak hours, but still seem to fill up to overflowing as the platform at our local Mingde station swells and sways with a kaleidoscope of travelers in the few minutes between each train. Our tactic of walking way to the start of the platform to enter the first carriage often pays off with that rare jewel of a spare seat, but not when the sun fades on a Saturday evening and everyone decides it's time to trip the light fantastic!!

It's occasionally a slightly unpleasant claustrophobic experience, but never a dull one! The fashions and "individual looks" alone are a night's entertainment. Really, when did it become fashionable to wear knee-high patent boots with mini skirts trimmed in fake fur, teamed with a tartan shirt and a puffy jacket on top with what looks like a Rastafarian tea cosy on the head? Or, has there been a men's revolution which dictates that huge thick-framed glasses worn beneath a flowing fringe of hair and enough product to service a Hollywood awards night can be accompanied by skinny jeans, moccasins, a low-cut T-shirt and a shoulder handbag of patent vinyl is de rigueur? I know I sound like a silly old tool here, but honestly, some of this stuff has to be seen to be believed!

Aubergine at Zhongshao Rd was our destination and we had the usual excellent dining experience. Afterwards we soaked in some city pulse and wandered the lanes and alleys around this bustling heart of the eastern fringes of the city centre. "Hello Kitty" had its usual gaggle of giggling schoolgirls, while Sogo department store was ablaze with Chinese lanterns for a promotion. The streets are a cacophony of sound, excited chatter, the din of constant traffic, the occasional strident horn blast and a palpable buzz of life as people scuttle to various appointments and assignations. We dived into the safe haven of the MRT and threaded our way home through a further pulse of people, platforms, places and products. We went to Uniqlo on the way home and checked out their winter range and got some heat tech gear for Valerie for her upcoming adventure to France with Cass.

I had a real shock on Sunday as I descended the 1000 steps. A large family of macaque monkeys were wandering up and across the path guarded by a very muscular looking "big daddy". There were tiny babies, small offspring and some larger ones as well as a protective mother. Daddy grunted and warned me, so I stayed stock still until he moved a little off the path and indicated (I hoped) that it was OK to continue. It was adrenalin inducing, heart thumping stuff, as the monkeys have been documented as making vicious attacks on people on this very trail. There are clear signs advising what to do in an encounter, however, and I was very careful not to stare them down or make any sudden movements. All's well that ends well, and I tip-toed past big daddy as he watched me quite warily from about 3 metres away: I felt like he was a freight train being held back by a rubber band! Here's the video of the initial encounter.

We finished watching the TV series "Orange is the New Black" (pretty good), and now we're starting the science fiction cloning series "Orphan Black"...seems like a theme is starting! We also watched the movie "Prisoners" on the weekend (A-) which was gripping and suspenseful with quite graphic violence.

Photos: places as described, ramen shop, my room at lunch, Saturday night (including a box on display at Taipei Main Station from the National Palace Museum) and shots from the steps, including a new, granite sheathed house about 1/2 way up with a sensational city view!

Youbike is an initiative from the Taipei local government that wouldn't really work in many other places. Bikes are sequestered in racks with electronic locks and sensor boards at many popular areas in and around the city, often in parks or by metro stations. The map shows hundreds of stations with each one listing bikes and parking spaces in real time. The bikes themselves are pretty sturdy and are regularly maintained by a dedicated team of servicemen and the banks of electronic sensors and locks are serviced regularly as well. The whole system works without a hitch and we enjoyed our first rides on this long weekend, catching the train down to Yuanshan Station, retrieving our bikes using our transport "Easycards" and taking the bikes out for a few hours on the riverside bike paths. When we returned it was as simple as snapping the bikes back into their locking stations, waving the easycard over the sensor and reading the withdrawal amount (which was NT$30, the equivalent of one Australian dollar!)

I can't think how the various logistics of this operation could possibly work in our hometown or country. The advanced electronics, the cost, the maintenance, the payment system, the infrastructure, the "safety" factors (no helmets needed in Taipei), the bikes, the servicing, the protection from damage etc. etc. I imagine any of these factors would prove to be an insurmountable challenge back home. I'd hate to think what might become of expensive and delicate electronic equipment and payment kiosks if positioned throughout the city in parks or by railway stations. We can take a bike here with no deposit, just an honour system that we'll return it to one of the docking stations in the city within 24 hours....think that would work?(!)

Anyway, suffice to say that we had a really fun experience on Taiwan's national day on Thursday and Cass tested her healing pelvis out on a good long ride through the riverside paths all the way to Neihu and return. We stopped for drinks and photos here and there, didn't ride too fast and thoroughly enjoyed our Youbikes. There is a kiosk and racks being set up just around the corner from us in the ShiDong Park awaiting their shiny new battalion of Youbikes , so soon we'll have even better access to them.

On Friday we took the car out to the coast with a dim prospect of some surf, but an ethereal curtain of soupy fog along with dribbling skies and whipping gusts of wind on the top of the mountain certainly dampened our enthusiasm. As it turned out, and is often the case, the fog lifted as we made our way down the other side of the mountain but the wind-whipped coast thwarted any hope of a surf. We decided to travel along the coastal highway and we stopped at a few places we'd previously just whizzed by. A peculiar nest of home-made "beehive" style houses were intriguing, and we got as close as we could without trespassing. They were so tiny and strange: we wondered who could possibly have built them and who lived there now. The Ju Ming museum on top of the mountain had inspired some coastal sculpture installations, so we stopped and had a look at them as well.

Years ago, in pre-car days, we'd travelled to a strip of sand out near Sanji which has since been infested with a motley row of cafes and eating/drinking houses, most replicating each other in terms of basic pastas and burgers. We stopped at one, "Share", for lunch and had the place to ourselves. We settled near the big picture window, had some tasty burgers and coffees while watching the comical efforts of a local entrepreneur on a low powered jet-ski trying to tow a "banana" full of life jacket-trussed beachgoers from one end of the beach to the other....pisse weake worlde sprang to mind!

On Saturday we decided to check out the much hyped new space movie, Gravity, over at the under-new-management movie theatre near our place, the formerly known as Miramar, now "Wovie" cinemas. I've got an app in Chinese which I can read for movie titles and times, but we can't buy online for the moment, necessitating an earlier trip over to buy the tickets. It was visually epic and we could appreciate the technical marvels exhibited, but the two main characters we thought were miscast, and the whole suspension of disbelief had to ramped up to stratospheric levels to cope with the loose plotline. We usually rely on Metacritic to pre-judge our viewing pleasure and we rarely disagree, but this time we did. We'd give it a B+ only. Chili's for a late lunch and Cass was in heaven!

Sunday was a lazy day and I managed to watch a great slab of the Bathurst 1000 on live streaming in HD, and I even had to do some marking of the new language portfolios we've been tasked with assembling and grading on each of the kids in our program. Cass met her quota of essays on Of Mice and Men so she's happy with her progress....she's got 45 more to go!

Photos: Cass blissing at Chili's, Youbike shots, beehive houses and a lazy lunch at "Share". There's a short video of Cass on bike here and a slightly longer one at this link....I somehow managed to juggle the phone while riding along!