Today is Sunny and Scorching!

Summer has come to Taiwan again, much as I remember it. Except it's hotter.

Just look at that blue sky...and sun!

After coming through the most confusing winter of my life - humid, freezing, unheated, funky, dirty, cloudy - it's a relief to finally see the sun. It's easy to ask my students, "How is the weather today?" and they say without question, "Today is sunny and HOT!" I like it, when I'm inside. And then I put on my outside shoes (Have I mentioned that huge market Taiwan has for shoes, considering you need shoes for home, shoes for work, shoes for scooters, shoes for "partying", and shoes for the bathroom? Just kidding. Your bathroom shoes are called bare feet.)

I went outside and it was scorching.

Go to the beach when it's hot and find...part of a wall?

The dogs know it. All of the dogs that hang around the wet market were panting in the shade, one of them chewing on a stolen arm of young ginger. The cabbage slicers, with their special crescent knives made specially for chunking off rotten bits of cabbage, had large streams of sweat running down their faces. Up the street, the builders and road makers were sitting on the backs of their blue trucks, catching a bit of a cigarette smoke in the shade before having to return to the hot heat of midday.

I come home and turn on the fan. After all, there's not much more benefit you get from an A/C, besides killing Mother Nature, that you can't get from a fan. Or can you?

Remembering being in Cuba...with the air conditioning blasting at a comfy 22C while we took our afternoon siesta. There is something so wrong and so right about snuggling into a comforter when it's sweltering outside. Maybe we should play voodoo with Mama Earth and get some comfort - and soon.

Oh yeah, fry everything in the ocean!

Sunday was hot, too!


Saturday, it rained all day, so Sunday we went for a drive to the fish market by the Taiwan Strait. It's an awesome drive, with hardly anyone on the road (you can really open up the scooter, all 55K that she can do with 2 people on the back!) One hour to the town of Yongan, and about 5 minutes to decide that the best thing to eat would be deep fried mini-crabs, fish filled with eggs, prawns and sweet potatoes.

I can't BELIEVE I stopped eating fried food last year! Ladies, if you want to have fun, and you want to have an appropriately sized bosom, you have to eat some fried food. Just do it!

Can't buy a fish without Neopolitan soft-serve cones!

I love fish markets. Some are open in the morning and some are open in the evening. There's nothing like it at home - the beautiful colors and the clear eyes and everyone asking you "Yao shen me?" - Do you want something? In true indecisive fashion, I mutter "Xien zai bu zhi dao..." - I don't know right now.

Many of the fish are still moving. Most of the clams are still spitting water. And of course there are stranger things - urchins, giant snails, giant lobsters (not as common), small snails (very common), dried fish, fish floss...I love it all...except the floss.

I'm gonna love you, and then I'm gonna steam you.

Bought a fish, which was only slightly descaled unfortunately, and took it home and cooked it to deliciousness. I ate fish three times on Sunday. I guess it is the Lord's day. ;D My goodness, it's hot.

Oh dear - the heat has gone to my head. I'm all over the place. It could also be the 22 students in my 2-3 year old class now. Tell me it's crazy, and I'll tell you I'm about the turn on the A/C!