July 11, 2007

  • Rainy
    Days

    It's
    June, so the weather in Taiwan is hot and humid. And every year it
    takes me by surprise. Not the heat and humidity – you can not
    escape that, and can not be surprised by it. What surprises me year
    in and year out is how the weather goes from being sunny and hot in
    the wee hours of the morning, sunny and hotter at lunchtime, to cold
    and pissing down with torrential rain in the afternoon, with thunder
    storms to boot.

    This
    week has seen me out and about as usual on the Suzuki, various
    meetings set up across northern and central Taiwan with potential
    suppliers for the Neptune Digital project. When the weather is warm
    and sunny in the morning, you just don't think to take a waterproof
    set of clothes with you, and this is something you later come to
    regret.

    Setting
    out to Shu Lin, in Taipei County, earlier this week, I left my home
    with the sun shining brightly, and not a cloud in the sky. By the
    time I had made it just 2 km, thunder rolled, and the sky turned
    black. Fifty metres further on and I was absolutely drenched. I made
    it to the 7 Eleven to get a rain coat, and carried on along my way,
    the road turning in to a flood as I hit Hsinchuang. By the time I
    made it to my destination, the rain clouds had cleared, and it was
    sunny and warm. Which is a lot more than I could say for my
    disposition.

    The
    following day I headed for Hsinchu for a meeting with some former
    colleagues of mine, when I started out in the IT industry 10 years
    ago. How time has flown by... A couple of years ago I wrote in the
    blog about how sometimes you go around full circle, and here I was
    again, looking to purchase products from the same people I used to
    work with back in the day.

    The
    meeting was fine and fruitful, and I headed back home on the Suzuki
    in the sunshine, reflecting on life, and everything that has happened
    over the last decade. I got back to the coastal highway, and headed
    north towards Taoyuan (CKS) airport and saw the ominous black clouds
    ahead of me. I braced myself for the inevitable downpour, and as the
    first drops fell, I stopped the bike to get the aforementioned
    raincoat. Truth is, it doesn't stop you from getting wet. But it does
    stop you from looking like a drowned rat.

    A
    propos rats, yesterday afternoon whilst sitting on the Suzuki,
    waiting for the traffic lights to go green I saw a rat scampering
    across the main road to get to the other side. It appeared that he
    (she??) made it safely – was very funny watching though.

    I
    made it back home in one piece, stripped out of my rather wet clothes
    and had a quick shower. The kitty does not like this weather at all –
    it is too hot for her, so she sleeps under the fan, trying to cool
    down a tad. Despite the fact that I brush her regularly to get rid of
    the excess fur, this is definitely not the right place or season to
    be wearing a fur coat. Even with the air con on, which is far from
    the most environmentally friendly way to go about it, kitty decides
    to find a nice cold tile in the shower room to lie on – anything to
    get out of the searing heat.

    The
    electrical storms in the evenings have been nothing short of
    spectacular, with lighting flashing all through the night, and the
    distant rumble (occasionally a lot closer than that too) of thunder
    telling Taiwan that the storm has not yet finished, that there is
    more to come.

    The
    only real down side – and let's face it, drying oneself off
    vigorously is not really an issue – is that these electrical storms
    cause power outages which cause my computer to crash. Not the best
    thing in the world if you don't want your hard drive to become
    corrupted.

    And
    when it is not raining in the afternoons, you have 40+ degrees of
    sunshine that – if you are unable to find a place with some kind of
    breeze – combined with the extreme humidity makes it difficult to
    breathe, and impossible not to sweat about 5 litres.

    The
    Suzuki had some more issues – this time with gear transmission –
    and so I had to get it repaired. The lao ban told me he would need
    the bike for the weekend, but kindly got his brother to lend me his
    250cc Kymco heap o' shite. Now I am not being ungrateful here, well,
    maybe a little bit (after all, he could have lent me his Suzuki
    GSR600), but it is tiny. How anyone could ride it and feel safe is
    beyond me. That does not mean, however, that I am riding slowly –
    just a little slower than on the Skywave. It has great acceleration,
    but I do not feel at all comfortable on it. It's just too small.

    It
    also has trouble with the battery, so when I went to start it this
    morning, it said it wanted to rest, and so I had to push it 1km to
    the local Kymco dealer, who charged the battery for me, allowing me
    to then restart it and get to my meetings. I headed back at lunchtime
    to the lao ban, who tells me that my Skywave is, essentially,
    buggered,and that he needs more time because the parts that are
    broken (and he showed them to me....damn, they are seriously broken)
    need to be ordered. From Japan. Bollox.

    So
    what is a rare treat, I get to cruise around Taiwan on a 250cc Kymco
    for a few more days. And wouldn't you know it? The next few days see
    me in more meetings than you can poke a stick at. At least – for
    the moment – it has stopped raining.