No typhoons to worry about after all, or at least not yet (the season's still young). Kaohsiung did get a little rain in the morning and other parts of the island got a good drenching, which is good. I don't think anyone will be filling up their swimming pools any time soon but at least the plants got some relief.

I tried to be nostalgic on my walk to school yesterday, but I wasn't the least bit sad to think it may be my last walking commute. I'm thrilled to be biking to work today. I am a bit nervous about the traffic so Lee and I are leaving especially early to avoid the early morning crowds. If all goes well with my psyche then I'll be thrilled. I'm not worried about the pain in my wrist because that's what advil is for. I know my heart's in it, I just want to know my head is alright with getting back on the road.

We're on typhoon watch here on the island. Typhoon Noul has made landfall at the tip of the Philippines and is now heading our way. We really need the rain but can do without the wind. The latest news I heard was that the storm was turning north and may just give Taiwan's east coast a glancing blow, but when I just looked at the satellite picture it looks like the storm is bigger than the whole of Taiwan. It's hard to imagine getting only a brushing with something so immense.

There's also a second typhoon building behind Noul so we'll keep an eye on that one too. We'd planned on going to the beach at the southern tip of Taiwan next weekend. The beaches there were closed today because of the current typhoon and tourists have been evacuated from the east coast islands. Hopefully we'll be able to squeeze our weekend get-away in between storms.

First, let me tell you about yesterday at KAS. There was a formal celebration of the completion of the new building and all the bigwigs of Kaohsiung came, including the mayor and a big delegation from AIT (American Institute of Taiwan), the closest to a US embassy that we have here in Taiwan. There were a lot of congratulation speeches and the lobby was filled with lovely flowers.

I didn't actually hear any of the speeches since they held the ceremony during the school day but you won't hear many complaints from the teachers. I'm pretty sure we've heard enough self-congratulations for awhile.

Friday was also the spring concert. With the completion of the new building there is now a venue for school performances. It's a beautiful space, lots of wood and great acoustics. The talent of the students is really incredible and both of the music teachers are magical. All of the students were great, from the pre-k kids singing "Head, Shoulder, Knees and Toes" to the 12th grader playing Rachmaninoff. Here is the middle and high school string orchestra performing excerpts from Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.

Today was spent at day one of my two-day weekend workshop, but this evening I finally got back on my bike. First I biked on the sidewalks of the park next door to the apartment then I ventured out onto the streets and pedaled around the park. I was not surprised to find that it hurt my wrist a bit to hold on and to brake. What I did find surprising was the vertigo sensation as soon as I got moving. It was an odd feeling to see the world rushing by, even though I was only going a few miles per hour. I'm not sure if that's residual concussion symptoms or if it's just getting used to balancing and moving again on a bike.

Besides that, it was really great to ride again. I was so happy I even took a selfie.

I got good news from the doctor yesterday: no surgery! The bone chip is still floating around at the end of the ulna bone but as long as it's not bothering me there's no reason to reattach it. The break in the radius was all the way across the bone and while most of it's filled in with new bone, there's a split along one side that hasn't quite healed. The upshot is, use my arm, be careful, expect it to continue to hurt and go see him again if it hurts too much.

So that means I'm getting on my bike today. I have a staff development workshop all day today (and tomorrow) so I won't be able to ride until this evening but that's okay. It's been nine (!) weeks, what's another day?  I'm a little nervous about finally getting back in the saddle but I'm excited too. My plan today is to bike around the park a few times. The longer term goal is to bike to work on Tuesday. We'll see.

I went back to yoga today for the first time since my accident, which was exactly two months ago today. My teacher was great in giving me permission to go at my own pace and my classmates were very kind in welcoming me back and telling me I was missed.

I can't put any weight on my arm or wrist yet so no regular down dogs but I did okay. I was surprised how many poses were problematic because of the rib, though. Things like child's pose, where my arms are stretched out over my head, was painful. I sometimes forget that I also broke a bone there, since most of the time I don't have any trouble with it, but it's still not quite done healing. Almost...

Yippee! We got some rain today! It was pouring this morning when I got up and I can pretend that was the reason I took a taxi instead of walking, but that would be a lie. I'd already decided the night before to be lazy so the rain was just an added excuse. We got more than an inch of rain over the course of the day and it was such a relief. My guilty hope is that we get enough rain so that the apartment's swimming pool gets filled up soon.

Lee and I have faced the dilemma of finding a good fruit store close enough to walk to and today we found one that just opened. It's conveniently right on the way home from work so we stopped today and stocked up. For US$10 we got apples, kiwi, mangoes, guava and a whole pineapple. We skipped the durian...

 but I did have this nice young man cut up my pineapple...

We went out for dinner with some KAS and some Taiwanese friends to a seafood restaurant we've walked by many times. We've never eaten there before because it's a bit daunting trying to figure it out. It's the kind of place where you point to what you want, suggest a cooking style - steamed, deep fried, sauteed - and the chef cooks it up for you. That's hard to do when you speak as little Chinese as I do. Here were some of our choices:

There were little anchovy-like fish and the red meat is eel.

Lots of different fish, fresh from the local fishermen.

Whole frogs and frog legs.

We had lots of variety, including deep fried oysters, roasted oysters, pumpkin vermicelli, steamed fish, clams steamed in soy sauce, sushi, braised cabbage. It all looked great and tasted even better.