We had our Mandarin test this morning. Both of us passed with exactly the same number of wrong answers, though slightly different marks as the weighting was different. We preened a little at scoring in the high 80s until our teacher mentioned that the pass mark was 75%. Well, it’s done. I haven’t had a […]
Occlusion
The last couple of days I’ve had a bit of a dip, an occlusion of my normally sunny disposition. Partly due to physical reasons certainly, but also it was one of those periodic instances where the despair at where we are caught up with me. It will all eventually come to an end, and if […]
More distancing
Yesterday morning the GF and I walked westwards, through the Botanical Gardens which were small, but free and very pleasant. I do like tropical botanical gardens, the wild lushness combined with being well-kept. The streets were quite quiet, late morning on a Sunday, and Easter I suppose, though there were few indications of that despite […]
Note of caution
The newspapers and so on have been getting over-excited about the BCG, and I had also started to hope it was true, for all my ‘it’s population, not individual’ muttering at family members who sent the pre-print of the study. So here is the note of caution.
The only way to visit a museum
The GF and I returned to the National Palace Museum, using two-for-one tickets we’d purchased a month or so ago when we went to its southern outpost in Chiayi, on the way back from Alishan. Social distancing measures have been imposed in Taiwan, and this mean that only 100 visitors were allowed into the museum […]
Weewaawaayoo
That was the title my much younger sibling, a toddler, gave to Oasis’s ‘Champagne Supernova’, it was one of her favourite songs at the time, as it was mine. I was not a toddler but a teenager, a startlingly naive and underexposed one, including to music which made me receptive to anything and everything regardless […]
Relieved sigh
Our visas have come through, phew. It always seemed likely they would, and really, given the global lockdowns where could we go, but it’s still a relief. After our Chinese lesson this morning we went straight to the Bureau of Consular Affairs to collect our passports. There was about a 10 minute wait, then we […]
Cry for help
In Italy they were singing from their balconies, in Iran they hung banners with verses from their windows. In Pakistan, at 10 at night, they go to their window or rooftop and call the azan at a time when the azan is never said, calling people to prayer to call to God for help. It […]
Better deal
We went to our first class at the city school today. I was relieved that it turned out to be very good; the textbook remains as dire, but the teacher was genuinely good and made excellent use of its exercises so that perhaps for the first time I was confident I was listening and understanding […]
Visa run part deux
I went for my own visa run this morning. Not much to report: another lovely walk through the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, this time earlier in the day so there were men out fumigating it. There were four people ahead of me so I had about a 30 minute wait, not too bad. The application […]