Somehow I managed to slip out of school early. At 3:30 David asked me do I want to switch my after school monitoring responsibility with him on Monday. I looked out the window at the fine day it had been, and I said sure! It took me a bit of time to get my classroom cleaned up, but out the door I went and it was only 3:45 - wow! I jumped on the 612, and was home and into my biking shorts as fast as I could go. I think it was 4:22 when I rolled out my door.

The usual bit of traffic as I started my ride -almost went the wrong way! Had to cut around 7-Eleven and go around the block. I was headed for what we call the Satellite run. Was feeling a bit of lethargy past the Palace as the road begins to incline, and made the turn past the abandoned amusement park - the start of the serious climbing. At the first big curve where you can look back over the city, it almost took my breath away: the city looked so sparkling clear, and I could see past the city to the mountains on the other side - a rarely-seen view as I have mentioned in a previous post. It really was a stellar day. Up I went, and each view was more beautiful than the one before. As I finally got to the top I was realizing that the sun, although strong, rode very low in the sky. The natural light would soon be gone. Yet still the beauty amazed me. Now, looking northward into the mountains, I saw tufts of clouds down low in the valleys, while the peaks still caught the fading glint of the setting sun. It was just dark enough that the darks on the earth are just beginning to pool into darker hues, and the streetlights and house lights are dotting the landscape. Even the glow of the red neon looked amazingly beautiful in the flame sunlight against the purple darks.

I passed some schoolchildren and shouted "hello!" to them. They were shy at first but then began shouting "hello!" back to me. Later, as the darkness dropped further, I paused to change my lenses, and the kids caught up, excitedly shouting "hello"" all over again.

I climbed onward, the air freshly cold up there, but I still kept to my short sleeves. The cold was thin, just the air, not yet absorbed by trees and buildings at the top - just enough to keep me alert. I had a set of sleeves in my bag, and I kept visualizing when I'd pull over to put them on - but I never did.

The initial descent was cool, but I was still warm enough from the climb, and by the time I had gotten to the little city behind the Cultural College, the air was already warmer. I rode through the AIT housing, and made the quick climb to the overlook - and again I was amazed. It really remained as beautiful as before, only now with the light nearly gone from the day.

The heavens were a deep indigo, which quickly faded to a pale lavender towards the horizon, then dropped suddenly to a deep carnelian. The horizon itself was a dark blur in the distance, but in the mid-ground the mountains drew a sharp contour against the growing blue of the sky. It was no longer cold like higher up, and I went down the rest of the way without sleeves.

I'll try posting a picture of the sky, but it was only shot with my cell phone. You can barely make out the lights at Taipei 101. I was happy to see it so clearly from there.

Apologies, apologies, yeah yeah, I know it's been five months since I posted anything to my blog. I do need to keep this up, along with everything else in my life. Anyway's it was Hallowe'en last week and Rhonda kindly had a LATE Hallowe'en party, which suited me just fine as I was in Japan last weekend. What is so fun about Hallowe'en? I think it's just the chance to dress up and be someone other than yourself. But it's definitely one of my favorite things to do. So enjoy the pictures HERE and I'll try to be better at posting.

Within about two days almost every vendor on the backroad had okra in their stalls. So, what could I do? I had to buy some, pull out my Joy of Cooking, and find the old recipe for cooking okra. It's pretty basic: green pepper, onion, okra, some tomato and basil. I dress it up with some red wine, chili peppers, olive oil.

One of the pleasure of life in Taipei is shopping for food. I don't know why, but the locals who see me walking with the familiar translucent plastic bag with the wide red stripes get excited. Are they excited because I'm cooking? Or because I'm shopping in a traditional market, buying fresh vegetables? They'll ask what I'm making, if I'm cooking Chinese-style. I guess I tend to cook both, or sometimes a blend of the two - Asian and Western. But the markets are such wonderful places to shop. Don't like the green peppers? Walk over to the next stall. This vendor has great asparagus - perhaps I'll make a frittata tonight. I look to see what I'll cook that evening. And there is so much to choose from. I think the variety was driven home to me one summer when I was in Connecticut. I was, for the first time in six months, in a supermarket. Not even mentioning the fact I was in a HUGE BUILDING with 27 aisles, but, that fact aside, I found myself in the produce aisle. I looked at the broccoli and, noticing it didn't look so fresh, realized that, in order to look at different broccoli, I would have to get in line, pay for everything I'd already gathered on my journey through this warehouse-sized business, walk through the parking lot, get into my car, and drive to another supermarket to see how THEIR broccoli looked. In Taipei I just walk to the next stall.

Excited to go home in just about a month's time. But not particularly excited to shop again in giant supermarkets.

OK, enough about food. I gotta go tend to my okra.

My Meter of Mountain
So, we had this great view out our back balcony. The treetops of the water park across the street (well, it has water fountains, so we call it the water park) fell within our gaze. From there, the mountains rose up - just the beginning edge of a ridge. Somewhere on the other side of that ridge is a spectacular hotel called the Grand Hotel, with an enormous wooden roof of red and gold, but it was out of our sightline. Still, we knew it was there.

On the best days, the clearest of days Taipei will begrudgingly offer, there was a more spectacular sight. On those days we could see (maybe only twice or three times to memory), we could see the furthest mountains down the spine of the island. Almost a dream, they hovered in a misty pale you could barely call green. But the distance, the unbelievable distance, was there for your eyes to see.

Then the building came.

After the noise and shake of the giant hole, steel framework grew, chased by scaffolding covered with a plastic blue tarp. This team of plastic and steel raced towards the sky. Soon we could see nothing without craning our necks. At over ten stories (we're on the 4th) it became quite a stretch to see any blue at all. The sky is up there, we're just not exactly sure where.

But after an interminable amount of time (over a year?) something happened. The scaffolding, story by story, came down. And, as it came down, we saw a gap. A tiny gap, relatively speaking, but a gap of about a meter between the new building, and the old building that exists next to it. And in that meter we can see. In that meter we can see the mountains. One lousy meter, and the earth and heavens meet for us. That's the slice God gave us. And it works for me.

I can see.

What more do I want? I can see that slice of what it used to be for me.

I count my blessings where I can. And I look forward to that day when the sun will burn off the haze and show me the distance and wonder that exists there every single day, just a bit hidden from what I perceive.

My favorite? The Lay's Hokkaido Grilled Crab. These don't play in Peoria.

One of the more inexplicable implements in Taiwan is the ubiquitous plastic dessert fork. Chopsticks are not a difficult set of tools to master, but eating a piece of cake with this fork is a talent few have yet to conquer. No matter which bakery you purchase a cake from, you are given a question-mark birthday candle, some small paper plates, and several of these tiny forks joined in a row. You bend them back and forth to snap one off, and you have it: this tiny, clear plastic fork not much longer than a toothpick, with only two tines about three millemeters apart. You take this short tool, slice off a bit of cake with it and, knuckles covered with frosting, you attempt to coax the cake onto the tines. Mouth open in anticipation, you crouch forward, and shakily try to guide the balanced bite to your waiting orifice. Of course it falls. You close your mouth in minor defeat, look down again at the fallen morsel on your plate and try again, as do all your celebratory compatriots around the table, chatting, drinking tea or coffee, and attempting to eat their piece of cake, following the same frustrating procedure. But no one gets up and goes to the cupboard to get normal-sized plastic forks. You never will. You will forever and always eat cake with these useless forks, because, well, that's the Taiwanese way.

Hello All - back in Taipei after seven days in Indonesia, on the island of Bali. So very green, tropical, and magical. Most of the magic of the place was in Ubud, a lively, busy town in the lower central part of the island. So many very kind, smiling people, holding their hands together prayer-like in greeting, saying "hello!" in a song, and flashing their perfectly white teeth. You walk carefully down the street, avoiding stepping on the tiny offerings set out - small squares of banana leaf with a tiny bit of rice, a flower, a cookie - all so beautifully arranged. Women walk by with tall offerings of fruit on their heads, on the way to the temple, traffic halts for a gathering ceremony, dogs walk lazily across the street, chickens run out underfoot - Bali has its own pace. Even the green, green flora, the dark lichen that covers stone statues with animated faces, the rains that come unbidden, suddenly and loudly, all add to the magical feel of the place.

I have hundreds of photos, which I've narrowed down to about thirty - click here to enjoy them.