Oct. 23, 2006 Carol

Taiwan update….Oct. 23, 2006

Sorry for the long delay between entries on the blog, but as anyone who knows us could suspect, life is exceptionally interesting these days, and time seems to be in overdrive.

Our trip to the Philippines for the 10/10 national holiday was so much fun. With only a total of four days off, we jammed an amazing amount of travel and relaxation into the hours! The trip was actually fun, even though we were on the road for two full days of the holiday. Flights were easy, the van rides long but comfortable, and full of things to watch out the windows—the crazy “jeepneys” that Bill put a photo on the site of, there are actually thousands of them in the streets of Manila and the other smaller towns we passed through, but like snowflakes, none quite the same! The outrigger canoe rides were very smooth and pleasant, no bad weather even though the latest typhoon had just missed the Philippines by a day or two. There was still quite a lot of damage from the one a couple of weeks earlier, so we were very lucky in our timing. The Atlantis resort itself was incredibly beautiful, actually more like what one would imagine a Greek island resort would look like. Pure white and Aegean blue with wooden twig roof patios, lovely pool with waterfall, tons of plantings and comfortable spaces both in and out of the rooms. The insides of the rooms were “sculpted” in concrete with curving walls, beds and showers and seats built right into or out of the walls. In the rooms called “Flintstones One and Two” the occupants, naturally, immediately became Fred, Wilma, Barney, Betty, Bam-Bam and Pebbles!! Bill and I were very lucky and got one of the “penthouse” suites, probably because we didn’t mind all the stairs, an acceptable trade-off for the spectacular views.

Bill had fantastic diving and the reports of the incredible bio-diversity and great visibility possible were not exaggerated at all! The place was absolutely first class in its service to and for divers and marine lovers. Fortunately, there were 5 of us who snorkel exclusively, both days we hired a boat ourselves and took off morning and afternoon for extended snorkel adventures. Every site was so different, like Bonaire, with a huge variety of fish, huge or small corals, nudibranchs, which I had never seen before, and our top pick-----the Giant Clam of the Philippines, which is so rare that it is actually classified as extinct. The National University is in the middle of a current project to reseed the species in the areas where they had been found and protect them until they can rebuild their populations. They were fished(?) out for the Japanese exotic food market, until they could no longer sustain their existence. We found about 15 in one of the sites, and created a fabulous adventure of the TAS Senior Varsity Snorkel Team! (Ask me about it someday when we are all having wine together somewhere! Astoundingly, we relaxed instantly upon our arrival, so even though the time was short, the rest aspect was salutary. The folks at TAS do work AND play hard (in the best sense!), as reported in all literature about the school. We are having a trip reunion this weekend, a progressive dinner in our apartment building as there are 5 of the participants here already, to review the photos, watch the videos and generally squeeze a little more joy out of the experience!

We continue to explore our environs as much as we possibly can. City life is fun after so many years in the country, although I know we will really enjoy getting back to open spaces easily accessible as well! We have seen some great performances in dance and music and are loving the big performance venues that can attract major companies, and performers. We have explored the Weekend Flower and Jade Market, found a couple of characteristic Taiwanese bamboo bedroom tables, enjoyed hot tubbing in a rooftop garden of friends after a lovely Thai meal, so we are certainly not suffering in the urban jungles!

On a school note, I helped out with the make-up for the school fall play, which was a Italian commedia del arte version of Turandot with dance and music by a local composer last weekend, and am in the thick of the last 2 ½ weeks of prep for the Dance Dept. Romeo and Juliet, the first thing I’ve ever done where the posters are in two versions, English and Chinese! I’ll be getting more fabric sometime this week at the DiHua fabric markets so nothing has changed!! Still in costuming, too!

Bill is ecstatic, we harvested his oranges from his tree and we ritually sacrificed them in a homemade orange meringue pie! It is gooooood……..

Well, time for rehearsal, Chinese continues to be very challenging, but someday I will hopefully stop embarrassing myself. Four of us from the first level are continuing on with shaking boots and and memories of high school trials rearing their heads. We miss you all and think of Door County falls.


Carol