It's always an adventure negotiating the back blocks of Japan with narry an idea, inspiration or plan! Once again taking advantage of the ridiculous good value that is the Japan Rail Pass, this time we're going to try to find our way in and around the nooks and crannies of Kyushu with a five day unlimited pass that can take us anywhere on the island that steel tracks will go! The Shinkansen is included as are all limited express trains and a few novelty/quirky ones at that: we just need to find the time this week to do a vague sort of plan of attack.

Budget Asian airlines don't often drop from the sky, so we're hoping this record will hold just a little longer. Despite all their efforts to trade us up in terms of hotels, rental cars, luggage weights and even meals and snacks, we've resisted all overtures and have the basic no-frills 7 kg carry-on, legs cramped onto the seat in front, middle of the plane cattle call. Who cares for a few hours? Not us!

We're leaving at the crack of dawn on Sunday, flying to Fukuoka, catching a taxi to the train station, changing our vouchers for a rail pass, booking some tickets on the limited express to Nagasaki, then catching the tram from the station to the hotel before meeting up with Mark and Himiko. That's the plan as best laid! We'll wine and dine and sight-see with them for the remainder of the day and that night before trundling off in another train, destination unknown, on Monday morning. Our mission is then to train-hop around the island, staying at little ryokan (inns) in tiny towns and cities dotted around the southernmost of Japan's great island system. It will be a further blast for me following on from my 30th anniversary tour last Christmas: I remember getting covered up in the hot, massaging sands of Beppu and eating a mixed seafood grill on the seashore more than those three decades ago!

In preparation for the big trip we've been doing exactly nothing! Consumed with the demands of work, where we've negotiated a very heavy grading burden lately along with the vagaries of a new unit on Shakespeare, we've been content to flop, quite unceremoniously, on the lounge on the weekends recovering before the working week rolls around again. My enervating man-flu hasn't helped matters and the most I could manage was a wander down to Lutetia to get some sandwiches on the weekend, even accepting Cassy's offer to walk and get some takeaway pizza from the incomparable Pizzeria Oggi for our Saturday night dinner.

While I sneaked into an early bed on Friday night to tend my heavy chest, Cass went out to Sherry's place for the latest installment of her Book Club. From all reports they had a great time and as usual, wined and dined impressively and found out all the latest and greatest about each others lives and loved ones, with a touch of salacious scandal dolloped in to the mix if you please!

While in the flight and accommodation booking mode, we made some bookings for the Sunshine Coast to meet up again with Ross and Ainsley this July. They conveniently plonked their school holidays in a quiet period between football games and we're looking forward to the annual festivities already. Speaking of football, it would be remiss of us not to mention the mighty resurgent Knights: two from two to start the season.....it's looking very promising!

Must away! I'm reading the impressively written Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan, while Cass is, with much sadness, slowly eking out the final pleasures that Kinsey Milhone will bring to us in Sue Grafton's ultimate alphabet mystery, Y is for Yesterday.
Photos: inflatable toys on car roofs, money fans and outdoor shots, notably of cherry blossoms which we hope to see in full bloom in Japan come next week. Last photo: Spirit Week is upon us and my homeroom kids decided to dress as "teachers"....not bad!

Virg'n Mary, that irreverent sisterhood, is well over 14 years old now, and this week we've been anticipating they may not be with us for too much longer. Virg has been tentative and timid with her food attack practices for some time, but this last week saw Mary pretty much shut up shop as well in terms of food intake. As much as they despise the outing, we bundled them into their blue transport cages and off to the vet we went.

Virg has turned from our 'lil fatty', all plump and cuddly with a tummy that hung down low and comically swayed side to side as she walked or ran,  into a husk of her former self. Her spine is delineated and protruding, her haunches sunken and her once proud stomach just a vestige of its past glory. She has progressively got thinner, but it wasn't such an emergency as she has continued to eat her previously favoured dry food with great alacrity at times, even if with lesser volume.

Mary on the other hand, has always maintained both her appetite and her weight, although eating more furtively away from our prying eyes. When she decided to basically stop eating a week or so back, we were prompted into emergency action.

The vets are wonderful and also well aware of the ferocity of these little spitfires when they are being forced into something they don't want to do. They got some official weights then sedated each of the girls in turn in order to withdraw enough blood to get all the relevant tests done. It was excruciating watching the little buggers panting away in a semi-coma while their tiny veins were mined for blood. It came very slowly and at an extremely limited volume, but eventually they got what they needed. While still "out of it" they x-rayed each one in turn to check for intestinal issues which might not show up in the blood work.

As it turned out, we discovered the next day that their old issue of dis-functioning kidneys had reared its head again. As they weren't eating their medicated kidney food and we couldn't force them to drink, the alternatives presented included us administering daily sub-cutaneous liquid injections to each of them, or injecting liquid into their mouths each day! With these two? No way!

Our immediate concern was to get them to eat: we reasoned that this was the first priority, and this would hopefully lead to them drinking more as well, once their appetite was stimulated. We've religiously fed them only dried medicated food for their entire lives: it was the vet's advice and we stuck to it. They used to love their "hardies"! Anyway, we changed to "wet" food as an experiment, and so far, so good. They wolfed down the first batch with a fever not seen since the last opening of a bottle of Peck's Anchovette. They have had various installments since, and already we are imaging them slightly plumper. At least they won't starve to death it seems!

We're very realistic and realize they won't be with us forever, but we're stoked they are not going to waste away like Belsen horrors before our very eyes. Our weekend was pretty much consumed with cat ministrations of one kind or another and grading of hundreds of essays between us. I was also unlucky enough to fall victim to some kind of body-aching flu which kept me pretty much confined to the couch on Sunday and struggling at school today.

Not much in the way of photos as I didn't take any of the medical procedures! A quirky set-up on a taxi driver's dash on my way home Friday night, well-fed girls basking in the sunshine, and some of us, at least, are eating like kings!!

If we didn't already know (which we did), it was driven home to us this past week quite strongly: Taiwanese people resent paying any extra dollar for goods and services that is not entirely warranted, explicable and well telegraphed. The great Taiwanese TPapocalypse is a great example of this phenomenon!

Unbeknown to us, when we were at the supermarket last week, we should have bought some toilet paper. In fact, Cass even had a pack in her hand then put it back thinking we already had enough to carry. Little did we know that not only our local supermarket, but every shop the length and breadth of Taiwan has been stripped, fleeced and denuded of paper ever since that time. Apparently a world wide shortage of pulp paper has led to a price increase, and in the minds of the populace this is either unwarranted, inexplicable or poorly communicated, hence the panic buying: apparently, people have been exiting stores with trolleys stacked six feet high with TP.....all to save a few bucks!

Even though it is extremely amusing (I did post on Facebook a link to the article with the quip, "I nearly shit myself when I read this, then thought better of it"), it is vaguely annoying as well. I'd hate to see what would happen if something like water became scarce and rationed...scary!

We tried a new local Indian restaurant on Saturday night, Moksha, and it had a relaxed ambiance and fine food. It is situated just opposite the huge SOGO departmet store near our place, so it's very convenient to get to and is also right next door to another of our favorites, Pino the pizza restaurant. We choose relatively conservatively as it was our first visit, but the menu is extensive and different, with many chef's specialties, and specialties from the region of India they come from. Mine was spicy, yet slightly less salty than I expected....perhaps an acquired taste? Despite this, the meal was first class and we vowed to re-visit soon.

Meanwhile, Cass bought a short, wool skirt at Uniqlo and tried it on in store but one of those annoying security discs proved to be placed at an awkward point right where she was doing it up. As it turned out, it was too tight, so we decided to visit another store the next day down in the Zhongshan district, partly to change the skirt and partly to take advantage of the, unusually of late, stellar weather.

The area is characterized as being just before the Taipei main station stop and leads into that area with a bevy of restaurants, galleries and specialty clothing stores. For this reason, it's usually abuzz with people out shopping or dining or just taking in the sights and sounds, yet today it was curiously quiet. We guesssed that it is a combination of factors: the 2/28 holiday and lantern festival holidays were almost back-to-back this year, so some might have combined this with the weekend to give themselves an extended break out of the city.

We came back via the Zhishan district and while Cass traded up her skirt (the other store didn't have any), I relaxed in the garden on a slab of granite which overlooked a manicured garden with carefully tended vegetables. It's a strange little oasis nestled among all the high-rises, but a lovely area in the big city to sit, contemplate and relax on a sunny day.

I neglected to mention why we had a rather low-key weekend: Cass and I were both out on Friday night drinking, eating and socializing with different groups. I was with Wal and Shaun, and Cass joined her "Bookies" group for a night of fine fare at Darby's place and we both caught up on all the latest, news, intrigue and gossip!

I need to catch up with Cassy's reading....she's read a pile of books since I last commented or updated our reading links above. Photos: more and more Australian products are creeping on to shelves or promotions, the TP runout, Zhongshan and the MRT, and bucolic scenes in the concrete jungle.

Driving, percussive beats greeted us as we were spat out with a wave of people at Yuanshan Station on Saturday. The day started to pulse with energy, the tang of BBQ wafted through the air, hawkers bayed, kids played and dancers swayed while a palpable sense of anticipation permeated the park and surrounds.

Like every other celebration or festival in Taiwan, nothing is ever done by halves. Who would have thought there was enough Latin-American influence in Taipei to sustain a carnivale of this magnitude?! Most of the crowd was made up of gawking onlookers just like us, but there was a fair sprinkling of Latinos throughout the performers, sellers and onlookers to make it a reasonably authentic experience. We did wonder how Taipei girls get involved with dancing in costume (see video above now, or here later), but they applied themselves with lots of vigour and expertise if not with the overt sexuality of the "real thing"!

As is often the case with international festivals, the Taiwanese take it and run with it, putting their own spin on the event and molding it to suit themselves. Drumming? Sure, we'll just wheel out the local high school beat band. They did an excellent job sustaining a hypnotic jungle beat, but it wasn't exactly Carnivale. The Minion and Supertruck blow-up jumping castles for the kids also didn't really fit in, but who cares?! The "special and delicious" foods being sold didn't seem to resemble anything I recognized as Latino.....more stinky dofu and pork dumplings if anything, but again, who cares? It was a rollicking great time and we had lots of fun threading our way through the hordes and soaking up all the sights, sounds and rhythms.

The Three Lions pub at the far end of the eating square at Maji sits just beyond all the cacophony of the open air stages, yet still within the hub of general excitement. We love it there: it has a relaxed vibe and feels just like a "real" pub, as Cass put it. The food is always top quality and the beers on tap very tasty and foreign with a nice side serve of house red. We snared an outside table for two just before the place really started humming and as we ordered, waited and then ate, the crowd filled and filled.

The stage just in front of our area had a succession of dancers and bands enticing the willing crowd milling in front to learn some basic steps and shake their booty, Latin style! The experts showed off some slinky moves, and a few of the Latino boys and girls slithered their snake hips and created quite a heated energy! Local experts joined them, a few brave amateurs tapped and twirled around the perimeters and a bunch of kids tweaked and bopped in between the lot of them! It was a great scene to enjoy our mid-afternoon meal by, and we lingered over the meal and drinks to absorb the fun atmosphere.

We took a leisurely stroll back through all the action in the market area and the park. Cass bought a beautiful and delicate cashmere shawl made in Nepal at one of the stalls, and we saw all sorts of hobby crafts, special foods and even some tiny karaoke booths shaped like an old-fashioned phone box, and just for a couple: what will they think of next?! We trained home in a most convenient fashion and reveled in Cassy's rediscovered health: she could enjoy being out and about in the world again!

Photos: Virg'n Mary have taken to sitting silently near each other in perfect unison and style....(kinda freaky like those two sisters at the end of the hallway in "The Shining"!) Some weird artwork on a local building and various shots of all the action down at the Taipei Carnivale.

The Lunar New Year (The Year of the Dog) seemed to splutter and falter a little this year, a cartridge of spirit-scaring firecrackers that failed to properly ignite, at least from our perspective. Normally the neighbourhood is literally rocking, windows being zapped and cracked by errant missiles, cheering and shouting at all times of the day and evening, as well as family groups wandering the streets and parks zombie-like, seeking sunshine, and some relief from some intense days of "special and delicious foods" and family togetherness.

There was, of course, some of the latter, and the more I think of it, the more in evidence it actually was. The real situation was almost certainly that we were not out and about amongst it all as we'd normally be. Our CNY break played out rather pitifully as Cass was struck by a flu like condition which progressed to her sinuses from the very first day of the break until the last, almost perfectly (or imperfectly!) timed.

One thing that was a bonus for both of us was the chance to catch up, guilt free, on some lost sleep as well as recover from quite a hectic Christmas holiday. Despite the fact that Cass was disappointed in falling ill over the break, she was thankful it didn't happen in Europe a few weeks back, as we were out and about in a busy schedule each and every day. This time, we didn't have any firm plans and had nothing to cancel or worry about, so we took the opportunity to enjoy the apartment, the cats and catch up on rest and pastimes in a rather decadent fashion. Cass would sleep in late, rally for some late breakfast and then toddle back off to bed for a long afternoon nap before surfacing again for a short evening stint.

In between times, we made countless visits to the ear, nose and throat specialists for ministrations and drug supplies, sourced some food items for dinners and read books and watched TV series. It was a fairly uneventful week!

Twice during the break I strapped on my walking shoes and headed up the mountains for some fresh air and exercise, leaving my sleeping beauty behind to continue her recovery. On Wednesday, I walked through the backstreets of our area and marveled at the newly remodeled path and park through to the supermarket in Mingde Road: it's now quite the Grand Boulevard! I picked my way through the hospital grounds of Cheng Shin before negotiating the labyrinthine Veteran's General Hospital grounds on my way to the back track to Dog's Head Mountain, passing all sorts of outer wards and a subway tunnel along the way. The walk up the mountain is paved and cut in steps, and on a gradient so steep that I was huffing and puffing by the time I reached the top. The sandstone outcrop at the peak is very impressive: I just wish that one day I might get it to myself to enjoy. As it was, despite the fact I didn't encounter a soul on the way up, it was populated with lounging couples and other conquering climbers, most of whom, like me, whipped out their phones to take a commemorative photograph!

I headed down the off-side of the mountain, which I'd never done before, and it gave another interesting perspective to the hill and the back areas of the hospital: seems like all the neurologically challenged folk are catered for in the quiet shadows and calm vibes of the forest and mountain, a pretty good choice.

Yesterday, I completed my more regular challenge of the 1400 steps leading from the staging point at the top of Chung Shan North Rd all the way up to the forest trail of the Formosan macaque troop, who were, mercifully, not in evidence. The slow moving train of family walkers grinding its way up the steps probably encouraged the monkeys to take solace in the deeper foliage: the groups were languid and annoying, stopping short at odd moments in the middle of the steps and/or shouting and jabbering all sorts of nonsense to one another, whether there was a fellow walker passing by them at that time or not! Not to mind, I enjoyed my cooling draught at the bottom before arriving home much refreshed and energized to find a slightly more "with it" Cassy, just starting to recover, of course, just in time to go to work again on Monday!

Photos: trail shots as well as the ingenious way a 7/11 dealt with the blow-out of its ducted air-conditioning....just get giant plastic bags to catch the water and keep trading! Also the hospital's food court offers at least 25 different food outlets, while Cass got out of the house near the end of the break to do some food shopping via the new "Grand Boulevard".

Chinese New Year signifies a whole range of concepts and practices for the local population and centres around family celebrations, special foods and ceremonies, especially some that take place on designated days throughout a two week period. There are extensions either end, but most of the action takes place over 4 days, beginning with New Year's Eve which occurs in a couple of days. For us, the nation-wide celebrations have little effect, except that we get a week off school, there is a surge in activity on the streets and shops, then a complete shut-down for a few days as families travel and visit one another.

We're currently in the pre-phase, meaning that despite the persistent chill in the air, there is a sense of bustle and hurry around the streets. Unfortunately, Cass has been smote by a throat ache and general associated malaise and lethargy, necessitating a few trips to the doctor to arm herself with various pills and potions. These are doing a reasonable job in controlling her symptoms, but we've laid low over the weekend and today to give her every possible chance at a good recovery.

On the way to the doctor's this morning we were swaying and dipping along Chung Shan Nth. Road on the scooter, laden with blue city bags full of garbage and various, voluminous packs of recycling goods. After I dropped Cass at the doctor's, I went back for a further load, weaving my way through the taxis and buses, great plastic balloons full of tin cans and flat plastics whipping behind me as I motored my way up the local garbage depot. Once there, I deposited said goods in their appropriate hessian bags then went back across to wait for Cassy to emerge from the doctor's surgery.

During my stint waiting outside the Ear, Nose and Throat clinic (see streetscape above...), I bid greetings to all sorts of folk in the hub round the school. Kids from the high school nodded hello, fresh and sweating from basketball games, and various colleagues asked what I was doing waiting there, probably menacingly lurking in the shadows as they strolled by! Parents and kids passed by and said "hi", while lots of traffic went in and out of the clinic itself as well as to the nearby restaurants and shops. There is definitely a sense of expectation in the air as people clean up their garbage, get supplies in, and tidy up their places in anticipation of the arrival of family.

We scootered down to the big Carrefour store after this to pick up a few essential supplies and were shocked to find every single scooter park in the vicinity, both legal and illegal, filled to overflowing! People were actively seeking those last minute supplies! I boldly parked straight out front on the red line and sent Cass in to grab the supplies while I sat astride Blackie, challenging any parking cop to try and move me on. While she was in the store, it gave me further time to observe the general population in preparation for the next few big days as well as the shut-down of stores; singles, couples and families came out with boxes and bags precariously balanced in and on trolleys and cradled in arms as they made their way home walking, or to their various transport options.

Cass has made a huge batch of lemon butter as is our tradition in recent years over this holiday break. This combined with great slabs of white toast, piping hot with butter and a strong filtered coffee make a decadent and delicious start to each day. We're sleeping in and taking our time over pretty much anything we like.....reading the paper online, reading magazines and novels, watching TV series and more. We're breaking our time routines and doing what we feel like, within the constraints of Cassy's illness....it's a decadent treat for teachers who observe time protocols like Pavlov's dogs during regular weeks of timetabled school teaching.

Despite the imminent shut-down of the city, we're hopeful we'll be able to get out and about a bit more as the week unfolds. Photos: The "Moop" has been spotted in various parks locally in his preferred damp and cold conditions of late. We're doing poetry at work: it's fun as Cassy's and my preferred genre. The clinic streetscape from where I was lurking, the girls in a tiny patch of brief sunshine, and a bustling, red-lanterned festooned Carrefour.