Friday, June 1, 2007

Hot summer days


I can't even begin to describe how unbearably hot summer in Taiwan is. The humidity is making things worse each year. Soon as May arrives, the heat level escalates and the air permeates with mildew because of the monsoon rain. The moment you move, your skin starts to develop a sticky salty layer that can only be taken off with a quick cold shower. The only way is to stay in an air-conditioned room. Here in Taiwan, you do not see happy people walking about leisurely, but only those with perspiring struggles to survive the heat and humidity.

Before I go out of the house, I have to remember to carefully apply the sunscreen lotion and get my umbrella ready to shield of the blazing sun rays. I used to laugh at those women with umbrellas, but now I realize that these are necessary weapons to protect people from the sunburn kiss. The umbrella carriers range from men to young girls. It is quite a summer scenery here. Just to prove that I am not making things up, here is a picture of a man holding an umbrella. Then when I drive, I put on slip-off sleeves on my arms to fight off the harmful heat.

So summer really isn't a good time to be in Taiwan. It is a steam room with pollution from the flooding motorcycles. I am always looking for summer hide-outs so if you know any that is not too far from here, let me know and I want to check them out.

6 comments:

  1. I always wondered about seeing pictures of Asian cities with women carrying umbrellas in the summertime when it was sunny. After being in Bangkok in August I had a better idea why.

    Women did it in Japan too, but arrived there in mid-September and missed the truly hot weather.

    I hope you can find some nice, inexpensive ways to cool off.

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  2. Yeah, Thailand can be miserable at this time of the year too, or even worse than here. Jeff, my recent cooling off strategy is to stay in the gym-at least it gave me a motivation to work out.

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  3. My philosophy is move north in the summer and head south in the winter. Of course, this applies if you live in the northern hemisphere. Those Canadian geese sure got it! It'll be reversed if you lived int the southern hemisphere!

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  4. haha!I totally understand what you are talking about.We live in the same island.

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  6. Let me think, north of where I live in Taiwan really doesn't make a difference so I'll have to find an overseas summer hide-out that hopefully isn't expensive to stay for the whole summer. Where could that be?

    I am glad that someone here in Taiwan empathizes with my HOT feeling.

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