Taiwan!

We are in Taiwan at the moment, for Adrian's conference. He did his talk this morning and was so good.

We are in Tainan, which is in the south of the island. The university here is the National Cheng Kung University, and we're told its the second biggest in Taiwan, with the first biggest in Taipei (in the north). It is quite a cool campus, with a museum, palm trees, big sports fields and today we saw a pond with pet turtles and goldfish! So cool.

The weather here is absolutely gorgeous so far (we've been here two days). It's really sunny and warm but with a slight breeze so that keeps it a bit cooler. About 22-23 degrees during the day I think. Being kind of an ignorant Westerner I thought that it would be a bit gross and kinda smoggy, humid and dirty. But the air is really nice, the sky is clear and bright blue (with no clouds during the day as yet).

There are so many scooters here! There are more scooters on the road than cars. And they wear little face masks over their mouths and noses while they're on the road. It's become kind of like a fashion trend I think: the markets sell the masks in heaps of really cool fabrics with different patterns and colours - everything you can imagine. Of course, you can get cat ones. I like all the cat fashions here, they seem to really like cats. Cat bags, cat tshirts, cat toys, lots of different cat stuff. It's dangerous for me!

The people here are really friendly and seem welcoming and eager to please. They always have a big smile, especially when you (try to) say thank you in their language. Even the homeless people are kind of endearing, especially one gentleman who seems to live in the subway. We have only seen about 4 homeless people though. Most people seem pretty well off.

Well I better go cos I think there are people waiting to use the internet.

Love xxx (and hopefully photos when we get back!)