Note: There isn’t much that I won’t miss from Taiwan, but Kane beautifully captures one thing that we will all be glad to escape: The 90 degree 90% humidity weather (Oh! and the mosquitos)!
Hello to everyone at home, as the group’s last full day in Taiwan comes to a close I would like to reflect on everyone’s favorite small talk topic; the weather. We visited three separate areas in Taiwan, Taipei, Ruifang county and Nantou county. The only thing all three reigions had in common was general humidity, especially compared to Seattle but temperature and weather conditions varied significantly. The group only remained in Taipei and Nantou county for significant periods of time, but Ruifang was also a drastic enough weather change that it would be interesting to note in contrast with the warmth of the rest of the country.
Taipei was often cloudy, but hot and humid with temperatures that often remained in the realm of 90 degrees Fahrenheit! Despite the cloud cover, the sun was quite bright and everything was a nice and bright grey. Fortunately, there was some warm rain every couple days that could keep us relatively cool.
Ruifang county is higher up in the mountains to the east of Taipei, and is host to an old mining town, Jiufen. We visited Jiufen itself and some of the surrounding area to learn about the history of the mining industry in Taiwan, but the weather there was extremely foggy and rather cold compared to the temperatures found in Taipei and Nantou.
Nantou county, which is host to Sun Moon Lake and Puli is relatively dry compared to both Ruifang and Taipei, but is still humid relative to Seattle. Here we finally experienced sun while being introduced to some of the aboriginal cultures residing and actively being revived within Taiwan.
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