Today's program is brought to you by the word"sweat" and the number "33"

There is only one word that truly describes Taiwan: HOT! The temperature has not dropped below 33 C since I arrived, and the humidity has been hovering around the 98% range. Needless to say, I've been sweating my balls off. When I was packing for the trip, I was thinking as I stuffed about 25 t-shirts into my bag that maybe I'm over doing it a tad. After all, I'm only going to be here for two weeks. As it turns out, 15 shirts and about 20 showers later, maybe I should have brought more.

I was very adventurous the first couple of days. I ventured out during the daylight hours to be a tourist and hit the temples and monuments. Then I found out that that simply wasn't a good plan. I'd make it out for a couple of hours, see a few sights, and then be forced back to the hotel for a shower and a nap. I have adapted to the reality of the devastating heat by hopping from air conditioned place to air conditioned place during the day and going to see different places at night.

One thing I've discovered is that, unlike Thailand, Korea, or the Phillipines, there are very few places here to have a cold beer in the afternoon. Those of you that know me can well imagine my consternation. The area where my hotel is located is a popular spot for the young hipsters
to hang out, but the only bar that I've found is a TGI Fridays. Honestly, I didn't come to Taipei to hang out in a Fridays. You can buy beer at any of the convenience stores around, but I haven't seen anyone sitting around outside sipping on beer, so I don't really know if it's an acceptable practice. Plus it's too fucking hot to sit outside anyway. My friend did take me to a pretty cool place called Shannon's which is an Irish pub half way across town. Shannon's staff is friendly, speaks English, the food is good and the beer is cold.

The other interesting thing here is trying to find something to eat. I have a fairly adventurous palate, but the fact that all the menus and outdoor signs are in Chinese and don't have any pictures of the food makes things a bit interesting. I've been lucky so far because while I haven't always been exactly sure what I've been eating, nothing has been too bad. There are some interesting flavors here.

When my friend and I were heading to Shannon's Sunday night, we got into a taxi driven by a complete nutjob. This guy spent his time (even while driving) drawing pictures of people who were unfriendly or mean to him while is his cab. He then taped the pictures to his cab window to warn those people to not get in his cab again. To say that this guy, who might have been in his 50s, was not a great artist would be an understatement. He did however take pains to explain to my friend that people would be able to recognize themselves because he drew all the eyes differently. He was very big on the eye thing. It was very strange. To think I thought the "two bottles of soju for lunch" cabbies in Korea were bad.

That's it for now.