Who would have guessed that "Super Claw Cranes" would suddenly become so popular in Taipei? Remember those frustrating, flimsy-clawed amusement machines that would entice you to spend a few coins to try and retrieve a plush toy with a mechanical claw? Well, against all odds in these days of mass electronic entertainment, they've made a remarkable comeback in numerous locations dotted throughout every suburb and on every byway and back alley. What's going on?! Two words seem to sum up this incredible revival of an entertainment that was pretty hopeless even in its first incarnation: "money" and "laundering"!

The substantial rumour about town is that these arcades are the latest way that organized crime gangs in the city are trying to launder their ill-gotten gains. It has all the hallmarks of such: banks of machines glistening under neon lights, open 24 hours a day and narry a customer in sight! They are also literally on every street corner and many spots in between. We thought the all-year round shop, "Mr. Christmas" was a perfect front for money laundering, but at least they have a few customers! Anyway, the claw machine shops are definitely the latest vehicle for cleansing the cash!

Another, slightly less sinister, phenomenon that has started popping up all around town is the private karaoke booth. Anyone who has been to Asia, in particular Japan and Korea, will know that karaoke is almost a revered pastime, eliciting great passion and even more intense vocal exhortations, many of which are sadly discordant! This new technology allows 1, 2 or 3 people to cram into a soundproof booth and select from a menu electronically, brandish a couple of microphones, and blast out some latest hits or golden oldies. The incredible thing is, you can walk past and see people almost literally busting their lungs, and not the slightest breath of noise is heard outside: remarkable!

We spotted some more of these booths on two floors of Shinkong Mitsukoshi when we ventured across to catch a movie on Saturday. We wouldn't normally pick "Beirut", but it was on at a handy time, starred the mercurial Jon Hamm, and had pretty good reviews. It was competently played out and we enjoyed the escapism, awarding it an A-, which is pretty high for us these days: either we're jaded from too many movies, have raised our standards a notch by selecting great examples most of the time, or we're just glad to greet a movie that is not from the Marvel superhero stable!

Afterwards we "dined" at JB Diner across the road, mainly because none of the Indian restaurants (of which there are three nearby) was open yet. I ordered the same meal I'd had previously and was disappointed just like the last time. Note to self: don't order the fish and chips! Cass had a deliciously prepared pasta and broccoli which I was very envious of!

The weather has amped up significantly and despite the fact the sky threatens and thunder grumbles each afternoon, the thunderstorm either doesn't arrive at all or does precious little to dispel the blanket of heat that engulfs our little river basin here. It's really awfully oppressive, and we arrive at school in a lather of sweat despite walking at 7 a.m. and stagger through a wall of humidity to get home in the afternoon. That winter cool in Newcastle is beckoning and it's only a week away...

We're continuing our shutdown operations and getting ready to leave. Before then, Cass and I have hundreds of essays on To Kill a Mockingbird to grade, cats to settle, and contingencies to put in place. We'll be in a flurry of activity for the next week or so. This blog will be on hold for a couple of months starting today: see you on the other side!

Photos: Produce of different sorts, the claw machines, the karaoke machines and cute, waving puppies for the Year of the Dog!

Ordering in box-loads, then transporting 100s of cans of cat food home has been high on the agenda this week, along with bulk hauling of litter bags and associated paraphernalia for the golden girls, Virg'nMary. Despite the fact that they appear to be Belsen horrors in comparison to their former rotund, roly-poly carriages, they seem to be in good health with glistening coats, shining eyes and moist noses. We can only hope for the best as we prepare them for the long, hot summer ahead!

These machinations have kept us reasonably pre-occupied for a while, as we've experimented with all sorts of flavours and brands of wet food. We've ditched the special formula "health food" from the vet's as one or other of them turned their nose up at it the other day. It is essential that they both eat it and that they are rabid consumers, not fickle "lick then walk" creatures. We've narrowed it down to just a couple: a gourmet feast of mackerel in an impossibly tiny tin and a can of tuna and sardine from the discount supermarket. Who knows what is really in it, but we're satisfied if they eat anything at all at this stage!

We ate out at the Thai restaurant at the neighbourhood SOGO on Saturday and although I didn't try it, I was intrigued by a pink version of a favourite beer (see photo). We ordered all our favourites and forgot about our hectic lives for an hour or two. Afterwards, we drifted down a few floors to grab some Uniqlo product. I got some shorts and a light jacket, while Cass got some of her favoured 3/4 length t-shirts, all for our anticipated daily walks along the coast which we'll be embarking upon ever so soon.

Shaun (our friend and middle school principal) just told me that I'll be switching assignments yet again next year. He wants me to teach a full load of Grade 8 English, so after a decade and a half, I'll be ditching the second language students and teaching purely literature. I've put a lot of effort into writing a coherent and detailed curriculum for all my classes this year in anticipation of an easier year next, but it's not to be. Luckily for me, an equally detailed and superior set of planning documents has guided me in my English class this year: I'll just have to replicate that for larger numbers next year in both class and student numbers. This curriculum, of course, is all thanks to my wonderful leader in the English department: who could that be??!!

So, in what may be the fading dusk of a long career in teaching, I'm getting set for one of my most different preparations ever. Who would have guessed this all those years ago when I was teaching Japanese to high school kids? There's never a dull moment when you teach, that's for sure! I'm going to cut this short, relatively speaking, as we've just been handed a little doorstep of extra grading of To Kill a Mockingbird paragraphs due to a colleague being ill....best get to it!

Photos: the newly svelte grand old duchesses in various languid poses, pink beer, my classroom, a sushi cart crossing at the intersection and a flower. Video above, or later here, shows my classroom, and its proximity to Cassy's, at a quiet point early one morning.

Meanwhile, on the east coast, this is happening!

It's difficult to fathom, but somehow the middle school play is here again and that, of course, means that the academic year at school is drawing to a close. It seems like only yesterday that I was full of trepidation waiting to teach my first middle school class for 15 years or more....now, I can't wait to wave goodbye to them all. It's been a pleasant year and actually quite re-invigorating professionally, especially with my leader in English being so cute and amenable! However, I still do enjoy a holiday, especially after a hectic, challenging year.

As you can guess from some of the photos above, I've been a middle school play widower this weekend as Cass has overseen her efficient make-up crew for the Friday and Saturday night performances as well as the Sunday matinee. The cast and crew are all invited to the big after party, but Cass usually demurs: she feels she's done enough mixing with the masses over the weekend and prefers to get a few hours to herself before the juggernaut starts up again on Monday.

Cass has assembled a quirky and eclectic crew again this year comprising members from all the grades: why does the makeup crew attract these "interesting" characters?! It's no problem for her of course: she runs the gig in a slick manner and doesn't tolerate the excesses of the cast "prima donnas", nor tolerates her girls giving in to them either. I think all concerned get the message fairly quickly, even from the planning meetings, that this will be a no nonsense operation!

A great friend and colleague of mine, Greg, had his retirement party on Friday afternoon which I attended and had a good time. In fact, apart from fare-welling Greg, it also gave me the chance to catch up with a few other friends, particularly from the elementary school, as I haven't often crossed the breezeway between A and B blocks this year. He's a great guy and I'm happy for him: he's one of those teachers who I'm sure the admin didn't rate in their "A team" but as usual, they got it all wrong as he was among the very best I worked with in all my time down there. The kids loved and respected him and actually went the extra yard partly because of him....he inspired them to learn. As far as I'm concerned, that makes a winner of a teacher! They've lost a good'un.

The other sign that summer holidays are around the corner is the proliferation of nesting birds under the awnings along Chung Shan North Road that we spy to and from school on our daily walking commute. They're always delightful, and the choir of chirping as well as the flitting back and forth with bellies full of food for fledglings is lovely and therapeutic. What is not so gentle to the soul are the daily attacks I've endured from my "friend", the local nesting blue magpie. This vicious creature continues to find ever more creative ways to swoop on my head and scare the daylights out of me. Although we walk together, Cass has been spared thus far: he seems quite determined to ward off my specific threat! Latterly, the local authorities have even stepped in with warning signs (see photo above), but as I usually have neither an umbrella nor a sturdy hat, I make do with covering my head with my bag!

The after school social activities are lining up, the in-school professional responsibility list is getting ever longer and our duties to get the house and fragile cats ready for a long, hot summer are mounting, so we're anticipating a busy few weeks to come. Cass will be relieved that the play is over, but she'll be ready to steel herself for all that is yet to come! Photos: Taiwan scooter style, plump chicks nesting on a speaker, blue magpie warning and shots from pre-play: pep talks for the cast and us in the "junk room" that Cassy somehow transforms into a back stage makeup parlour.

P.S. Thanks for reading and appreciating, K.P. !

The craggy hills surrounding Pingxi look like a giant, prone stegosaurus covered in a living hide of dense woodland and vertiginous granite slabs. Unfortunately, the serene and wonderfully nuanced beauty of the wooded hills surrounding the village is punctuated by little pin-points of bright colour: not an exotic bush or flower, but a fallen, crepe paper hot-air lantern from the village itself. While not too noticeable, apparently the tonnage of fallen crepe paper and wire is so great that it is causing great environmental damage, as well as the odd forest fire!

We'd driven past Pingxi on any number of occasions over the years and visited her fellow villages multiple times, including Shifen, Joufen, Ruifang and Houtong. We decided on the spur of the moment, on a beaming Sunday morning, to make a dedicated trip to the village to tick it off our "list"!

Of course before you get the payoff of beautiful bucolic visions of Chinese water colour painted mountains, one needs to negotiate some of Taiwan's rather hectic expressways! The dedicated arteries traversing the length of the west coast, criss-crossing one another at various intervals, also bullock their way through the mountains of the north, all the way to the port city of Keelung. We chose the "1" over the "3" for no particular reason and got swept along with thousands of cars, buses and trucks as we hurtled ever northward. Eventually, and mercifully, we spotted the turnoff to Nuannuan, the gateway to the forest villages, and we were spat off onto a gentler byway!

Through a few towns and villages, meandering up mountain passes, and negotiating tunnels and bridges, we found our way to a busy Pingxi and made use of a car-park that an enterprising local had fashioned from a spare lot next to his house. We wandered round the well-signposted historic district and politely declined the many opportunities we were offered to add to the environmental chaos on the surrounding hills: the lanterns are surprisingly large, as big as a small child, so it's no wonder they cause such damage. The idea is to write various wishes on the lanterns and then set them free with a burning ember inside, to watch them rise and rise till eventually they're out of sight (and out of mind). I feel sorry for the local traders: they re-invented the village with this gimmick, only to have it come back to bite them a little.

Ruifeng (mine tours), Houtong (cats), Shifen (waterfall tourism) and Jiufen (old town and food) have all re-invented themselves as they, along with Pingxi, were economically devastated when the local mining companies shut up operations. There was little work, and young people left the village. They've all done an amazing job at luring day-trippers from the big city, and Pingxi has developed a world famous lantern festival, which on one crazy night in March, attracts 80,000 visitors: we couldn't imagine this pocket-sized village swelling to such proportions!

We had a pleasant weekend all round, and the day before our country adventure we'd gone to the movies to see the brand new "Terminal" starring Margot Robbie. It had its world wide premiere in Taiwan! We'll be interested to see what the critics make of it: it was quirky to say the least. Cass really loved it but I had certain misgivings. It reminded us a little, and had overtones of the dystopian film "High-Rise" that we saw a number of years ago, also originating in Britain. Afterwards, we whisked over to Shilin to get some gourmet bespoke burgers at Burger Ray's, but alas, it had disappeared without a trace!

A new burger joint with a signature point of massive up-sizing and a super-hot, ghost chili sauce was firmly ensconced in Burger Ray's shop. It didn't have any vegetarian options, so we tried the interesting looking cafe next door, Tino's pizza cafe, to try their pastas or pizzas. Cass got some peanut butter covered french fries(!) to accompany her cheese pizza, while I had garlic seafood on my pizza and we each got a giant, uber-strong coffee...pretty good!

It's all happening here at the moment: the blue magpies continue to dive bomb us every day, reports are being written in every spare minute, social events fizz away every weekend, and Cass has the all-consuming middle school play this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We'll take a deep breath and get back to you next week!

It feels like an apocalyptic scene from a movie. In an ancient forest as pterodactyls hone in on a target in a vicious laser -like dive and bombing, tearing the scalps from unsuspecting humans fleeing along the forest floor. In reality, it isn't that frightening, but these Taiwanese blue magpies certainly know how to ratchet up the terror dial!

The park adjacent to our place has been home to a pair of nesting Taiwanese blue magpies for a couple of years when the temperature warms and flighted creatures turn their minds to procreation. Unfortunately, despite being quite rare and beautiful, they're also fiercely territorial it seems, and they've taken a distinct dislike to my balding pate! Every time we walk through, they shrill and bark out their distaste to our invasion and, unerringly, they zero in on my head for a warning shot. I've taken to erecting a flimsy defense by walking along with my bag on my head! Apart from attacking passers-by, they've also drawn their own dedicated band of photographers keen to capture their exotic plumage in flight or perhaps even a glimpse of their fledglings. They're real celebrities there's no doubt about it, but I long for the day when they take off somewhere else again!

We've done our first major shop at the new(for us at least) PX Mart, fondly known as the "Blue Mart". Our reconnoiter the week before paid off as we were able to find our way down the extra block or two then negotiate a trail round the inside of the supermarket itself. The only major absentees were broccoli and tinned tomatoes. When I asked a worker, he replied in Chinese that they didn't have any, but he was unclear if that was just a momentary lack or a permanent one: I guess we'll find out. Pretty chuffed with our efforts, even thought it took a bit longer than usual, we made plans to go down to the SOGO and have Din Tai Feng for our afternoon/evening meal.

As usual, it was a veritable feast! Cassy had the vegetarian mushroom dumplings and I had the traditional chicken xiao long bao, accompanied by special fried rice with egg and prawns along with stir fried cabbage and pickled cucumber....ahhhh! A whiz around Uniqlo on the 4th floor yielded some "active wear" for Cass which she's pretty impressed with, and a T-shirt and socks and undies for me. Wendel's bread on the way home completed our shopping trip for the weekend.

We attended a memorial service at school for one of my ex-colleagues on Sunday. Joyce was a much loved member of various departments at school but more than a decade ago, she was diagnosed with cancer. Despite a long battle and various stints of treatment that initially went well, she finally passed away quite recently in the U.S. Her husband, Ralph, also a good friend and colleague, is back for a couple of weeks based round the service. I've written a story, as requested, of our memories of Joyce, and it was quite cathartic and also very well received by Ralph. They're going to compile the contributions into a book to give to her grand-kids when they get a little older: at this stage they are all very young. The service was quite delightful and a genuine celebration of life, just as Ralph wanted and requested. Of course, like anything like this so close to home, we were quite reflective and thoughtful afterwards: Joyce was just 67, the same age as dad when he died.

Photos: A shutter of photographers, the weapon herself (stock photo), Cass illegally perched on the building's chair lift, Cole's meat at the PX Mart (!), a giant hibiscus, the sedentary babies, and a very red tongue from eating a dark-fleshed dragon fruit!

Only the sound of gravel crunching underfoot disturbed the generally bucolic soundtrack that played out along the ridgeline of the Tienmu Gu Dao track on Sunday. Plump lizards scratched and bustled away from the human disturbance, and I occasionally caught a flash of their neon back patches or scuttling legs as they did mini bush crashes in their haste to be away. Locusts cast a symphonic net over the mountain and the occasional beeping bird call played accompaniment. The rhythm section was comprised solely of the distant but distinct shrieks of a barrel of Taiwanese Macaques as they swang low, smashing fronds and cracking branches, as they traversed the canopy above.

Our weekend had begun in a standard manner with both of us having social Friday nights, after watching some football together in the fading afternoon before we tripped off to separate events. Mine was the standard beer and sausages affair with Wal, while Cass went to the other end of the culinary spectrum with her visit with the "Bookies" to the "too cool for school" slick outfit that is Il Mercato down on Chung Chen Road. We both enjoyed our catch-ups and despite the fact that the food and drink quality varied widely, we enjoyed the meal as well!

Our girls, Virg n Mary, aren't in the prime of their lives. They've been so robust and immune to any sickness or disease that we'd been lulled into a false sense of security concerning their longevity. They're really senior citizens now having just passed their 14th birthdays. As if a switch had been flicked, they simultaneously decided that their medicated hard food that they've eaten exclusively for their entire lives was now to be shunned. As they lost weight, week after week, we were desperate to get any food into them at all, so we've tried every variety of wet food we can find, visiting many shops and supermarkets. We're still experimenting, but we've found a couple they'll tolerate, one in fact, that they wolf down quite ravenously. So, anyway, for the time being at least, they're hanging in there and might even be putting on a couple of grams!

Seguing from shops and supermarkets, it is in fact true that our trusted local supermarket, Mingde Wellcome, is shutting down....in fact, it's closed already! We scouted out the Blue PX Mart nearby and it seems to be reasonably good, a worthy substitute. Although a rather lengthy block further away (which is a factor as we lug the shopping by hand), it follows our preferred route through the park, across the river and along the "Boulevard of Dreams", so we think we'll try it for a while at least. We shopped at Carrefour this week and also went to Wendel's and Pizza Oggi, so we felt we'd spent the entire Saturday looking for supermarkets, buying supplies or food and getting takeaway!

Back to the Sunday trail...not only did the aural senses get a workout, but the scene was lit by the most amazing spring sunshine. It pierced the foliage with barbed rays that danced on the path as the breeze shook the treetops, and dappled sun spotted the path as I marched on from the top of the stairs all the way to the Cultural College steps at the end of the mountain pass. As the sun patches intermittently struck the steps, a kaleidoscopic flutter of butterflies dipped and swirled. The brand new leaves were golden green and shimmered with new shoots and then, emerging with a crack from the spearmint mist were the aforementioned troop, cartoon monkey style, all four of different sizes swinging languidly above the trail up ahead and then, effortlessly, up, over and gone.

Photos: My Orphanage Club officer election speeches, sights you see walking home from school, shots from the trail and Cassy all Italianed up to visit Il Mercato. Video: capturing the serenity up above for now, but here later.