While Lee was with his basketball team for a tournament in Taipei I went with a friend to the former British Consulate for afternoon tea. I'd been there before but wanted Dawn to go before she heads back to Maine after school is over. It was a beautiful day. Hot but breezy and not too humid with a very low pollution index. I opted for iced coffee instead of tea and neither of us was very hungry but the presentation was lovely.

When you start at the bottom with the sandwiches and take your time getting to the top the sun has a way of making it a little less appetizing.

The pretty little pyramid of chocolate turned into a soupy puddle with the rose cookie sunk deep into the mess. From my previous experience I know that the cookie was no great loss. Rose flavoring should be saved for soaps, not food, because who wants to eat soap-flavored cookies?

Because the sky was so clear the view of the city from up on the hill overlooking the harbor was spectacular. I may frame this shot and hang it on my wall.

This Saturday morning I was listening to your Friday evening's "All Things Considered" broadcast from Amherst. The weather report called for lows down to 40 degrees Friday night with possible showers on Saturday and a high of 70. At 6:00 this morning in Kaohsiung it's already 78 degrees but it's not going to get any hotter than about 86. I'm jealous of your temperature range. It won't getting awfully hot but it also doesn't cool down much at night. It's that relentless sameness that still surprises me.

Unfortunately our forecast also calls for no rain in the city, once again. The good news is that there was heavy rain in the mountains yesterday so the planned water restrictions for next week have been suspended for another week. The city government had planned on shutting off tap water to all businesses and households on Tuesday and Wednesday. No one here drinks tap water so it was a matter of figuring out how to take showers and wash your dishes once your apartment building's reserve tank ran out. KAS apparently has a fairly large tank that could last as long as a week if necessary so there are no plans to close the school if the water restrictions ever happen. The government is reevaluating every Friday and deciding at that point if the following Tue/Wed shut-offs will happen. There were rolling shut-offs in Taipei earlier this spring with good results in water conservation so Kaohsiung is giving it a try.

The wet season usually starts in May. The sooner the better!

Today was parent-teacher conference day. No classes, just eight hours of sitting at a table in the exhibition hall with parents traveling around the room to find their child's teachers. Lee talked to 36 families. I think I may have set a record for lowest attendance with a mere seven. There was no line of people waiting for their turn with me.

Elementary specialists like me, art, music, language, IT, we just don't get as many parents interested in talking to us. Their main interest is the regular classroom teacher so it's not surprising I had so few, but I was disappointed that only three of my eleven sixth grade parents came. It certainly made for a pretty dull day.

What to do after eight hours of grueling work? Head to the local bar, of course.

Lychee martini and beer, chicken wings, sunset over the lake and a nice cooling breeze. Not a bad combination for some good unwinding.

A couple of goings-on at school today. The high school art teacher had his students prepare  gladiator costumes and weapons and then put on a performance. They used the center courtyard of the upper school and staged fights to the death. Well, not so much death as destruction of their cardboard costumes and cardboard weapons. It was a great opportunity to take a break from class and cheer on the students.

This is my grade 6 social studies class watching over the railing from the second floor. Apparently the boys think the lone girl has cooties. 

 Dan gives last minute instructions to the combatants.

Students and teachers watched from all four floors and gave their approval with thumbs up or disapproval with thumbs down. Dan then either knighted them with his cardboard sword or stabbed them in the back. It was all very ruthless and a lot of fun. I overheard one of the kindergartners say, "They're hitting each other. Didn't the teacher tell them no?"

The other going-on was after-school weaving club.

There are only three of them but they begged me to have club keep going after it's supposed to end next week. It's very gratifying that they're enjoying themselves so much. 

Before we moved I got a book called "Culture Shock Taiwan: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette." It was interesting reading, although it centered on living in Taipei, not the hinterlands of Kaohsiung. The reason I mention it is that the author talks about how culture shock can reappear at any time when you've made such a big move. I wonder if I've got a little of those blues. I woke up yesterday feeling off. Not so much sick as just tired and achy. My day was okay at work but when I got home at 4:30 I lay down on the couch and didn't get up until 9:30 when I dragged myself to bed.

I called in sick today with the hope that I'll bounce back more quickly with some time off from the every day. I'm not very good about getting the paperwork in for a substitute and may get a lecture about it tomorrow. That may be a good reason to call in sick again...

A friend and I needed to take a taxi to Chinese class this evening and it was a good thing we had our notes from last week's class. The driver didn't understand the address we gave him and drove us way off in the wrong direction. I finally got him to stop long enough to look at my phone for a nearby landmark and then we looked up how to tell him left turn (zuo zhuan), right turn (you zhuan) and go straight (yi zhi zou) until he got us to our destination.

He thought it was quite funny and wouldn't accept the full fare for the ride. He even gave us lessons on the proper pronunciation of Yucheng Road. I either need to get better at Chinese or get back on my bike soon so I don't have to rely on taxis.

We've decided that we need to find some adventures here in Kaohsiung that we can do with the subway and walking so I don't feel so trapped without my bike. Today we headed to the beach. Kaohsiung has two ocean beaches, one on Cijin Island and one near Sun Yat-sen University. We've biked to both of them but never been swimming so today we packed our suits and towels and headed out. We took the MRT to the western terminus and walked along the harbor for 30 minutes to Sizihuan Beach where the University runs a hotel and restaurant through its hotel management department.

The lunch was a bit odd. The server wrote down my order wrong so I sent back the seafood pasta and waited (and waited and waited) for my rice dish to come. It was like a competition among the wait staff to avoid making any eye contact with me or Lee as they paraded dish after dish to the other tables. At one point they brought back the pasta and said I could have it for free because they had made the mistake, which was good since otherwise I may have starved while I waited. The rice did eventually come and it was quite good but the whole experience was just a bit odd.

Fortunately the beach was right there so after lunch that's where we headed. This being Taiwan, there was no one else in the water, although there were some people dipping their toes in at the edge.

The beach is beautifully black so it was quite hot to walk across but the water was just cool enough to be refreshing. A perfect combination. It's pretty cool to be able to have a beach so close to home and be able to swim in it at the end of April. One of the benefits of Taiwan living.