Guan Yin Shan Golf Course

Andy, my friend the Yamaha dealer here in PingTung called me on Tuesday and asked if I wanted to play golf on Friday. Silly question of course. So on Friday I picked him up at seven and then dropped Johnny off at school and we drove to Guan Yin Shan golf course. Now if you don’t know where this course is and you can’t read Chinese it is not easy to find. Either from the east or the west the last 4Km is on a winding one lane road with no clues visible from anywhere. A few years ago it took Andrew Carrick and I three attempts and a lot of questioning before we found it. But now it’s easy.

The course had changed little since I was there last, besides getting harder. Some of the fairways were wider and there was new building going on around the course. It wasn’t a real picture-taking-day due to the overcast and occasional misting of rain, but the temperature was perfect. We had neither cold rain nor hot muggy feeling until the last hole when the sun came out. It was such a nice day I forgot to grab the scorecard from the caddy. Oh yes, in Taiwan you almost always have to have a caddy. Here we also had a cart. Andy had coupons, probably through Yamaha, and always lots of new balls. I forget how many I lost.

After a shower and change of clothes (almost all courses have locker rooms here too), we went to lunch in PingTung. He restaurant is on Gong Yuan Road behind the Police station just before the next corner and across the street from a big parking lot. We had Nio Ro Mien (beef noodle soup) something very common, but the best I have tasted. Even the noodles had good flavor. Now most places will give you more broth if you want it for your soup, but this place will also give you more noodles. I will be going back there again

Visitors from OZ and the saga of the Bundy Rum

It all started in Brisbane, Australia at the duty free shop at the airport. Ed and Gwen Rankin were going to Taiwan to visit the new Grandson Ian, and planned to bring the necessary provisions: Vega-mite; quarts of sun-screen; and a couple bottles of Bundy Rum (for dad of course). They bought two bottles and made it through customs in TauYuan International Airport. Then, in transitioning to a domestic flight to Kaohsiung they were informed that they could not take any bottles of liquid larger than 100ml. What a crock of stuff. The bottles were confiscated and “dumped out” (and I have some beachfront property for sale in Arizona). No discussions, arguments, threats or whatever could persuade them to change their mind. They were asked if they wanted to ditch the plane and take the bullet train instead.

One would think that because there were two different airlines involved they had a miscommunication, but no, both legs were on China Airlines. Go figure.

No Bundy Rum, what’s the point of the trip after all? Oh yeah, the new born grandson, Ian Rankin. I remember my mother coming to see my new born son. There wasn’t even a pretext of an interest in seeing me, my wife, Hsien-Ling, maybe, but me no. Just the new baby.

Anyway, it doesn’t take much of an excuse to get the expats together for breakfast so there we were this morning at the usual place, the Forest Café near the teacher’s college. In the first picture there is Brad, Andrew-never-late-for-golf-Carrick and his wife Julie, Bonnie Rankin, Hsien-Ling, me(no, I was taking the picture, really I was there). In the second picture is Gwen, Ed, Nigel Edgar, Richard and Ian (in the third picture).

Richard is taking the folks to Taipei Saturday for some touristy things via the Bullet Train. I haven’t heard Richard using much Chinese though he has been studying. That would be fun to watch, having been there myself when I showed my mother around Taiwan. Now I take my son who says “shut up your Chinese is giving me a headache, I’ll so the talking”, or something a little less rude, depending on who we are with. Sometimes with the guys on a bike ride it gets even worse……