First day of winter

Google informs me that today is the first day of winter.



While I am loathed to disbelieve the giant search engine, the weather outside feels less like winter and more like a balmy autumn. It's a very pleasant 21c outside today, with a soft breeze and dappled sunshine peeking through the fluffy white clouds. Our students are still running about in shorts and short sleeved shirts, with the occasional sweater thrown over top. Yangmingshan is beautiful when it's like this. 

Now this is, I hasten to add, not the kind of weather we experience on a daily basis. For the last few days it's been wet and miserable (like England in the winter). I would like there to be more days like this in the coming months but I've been told not to get my hopes up. Winter in Taiwan is supposedly very wet, though thankfully not as cold as the UK. Ah well. I shall enjoy today while it lasts and recall it from memory when the wet weather brings me down. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 3

  Not a huge amount to report from the last two days. We’ve been pottering about the house getting things sorted. Lots of old crockery in the kitchen to be removed and boxed up. Lots of cleaning to be done as well. My old nemesis, the ants, have found us, so a good clean of the kitchen and living room floors is due today, then we can lay down some traps and hopefully that will deal with most of them.  The house is really lovely and big, but the last tenants didn’t treat the paint work very well. We’re going to speak to the landlady today to find out if we can get some paint and touch up the areas that need it. A good quarantine activity, and might provide us with some exercise as well. There are some areas we won’t be able to do like the staircase as the walls are too high without a ladder, we will do the places we can and get someone in to finish when quarantine is done.  Our shipment will arrive on the 16th August, so as soon as quarantine is done we can organize to have it brought u
Read more

And we're off!

So today is the day. Packing up the flat and our lives was incredibly difficult not just because of the sheer amount of stuff it turns out that I have but because it really did finally dawn on me that I’m leaving. I’ve been a moody cow the last few days and James and my family are saints for putting up with me. I’m exhausted and I’m not really sure I'm prepared for this. I kinda have to be now. We are surprisingly flying via Bangkok which was a shock to both of us. We were both convinced we were flying through Shanghai. Ah well. An experience if nothing else. My hand luggage is over weight apparently. If they weigh it at the gate I'm kinda screwed but if not then woot. At this point I'll just pay.  Leaving home was really hard but it was lovely to have the entire family there to send us off and my best friend. Both James and I are really tired now and anxious to be off. We just want to be there now. I'm looking forward to putting my head down in the hotel and
Read more

Hot, hot, hot!

Image
We finally arrived in Taipei last night at 9.30pm. The flight with EVA was a rather quite good. James had me fearing the worst (Asia's answer to Ryan Air was said more than once). But I think we were both pleasantly surprised. There was good legroom, the seats were wider than normal and had lumbar support. The food (as long as you stuck to the asian dishes) was good and the entertainment was satisfactory. The flight was pretty uneventful and included a stop in Bangkok. This surprised us both as we were convinced that we were flying via Shaghai. We followed everyone else and had a smooth transfer though security and back onto the same plane we're just left. The walk was appreciated though and the chance to change/wash up ect in a bathroom bigger than a closet.  Coming through immigration in Taipei was really quite quick and much less eventful than I had thought it might be. The lovely man at immigration said I was more beautiful in person than in my passport photo. Score one
Read more