From a few photos above you may be deceived into believing that the week and weekend past threw out a few rays and we were able to bathe in the warm glow of the sun to warm our chilled bones: you'd be incorrect! We made the most of the wink of sun on Sunday around the middle of the day to rush out and try to soak it up, stomping up the Tienmu Stairs to the track around the ridgeline up top then back again.
The week has been dreary and cold, only slightly thawing from the previous weekend when 50 people died from cold related illnesses over the frigid two days! Although it seems difficult to believe as the weather was hardly blizzardlike, the fact that people are unused to single digit temperatures and the almost total lack of insulation in tinder block apartments, along with inadequate heating, meant that many poor or infirm people were at risk. In the aftermath of the snow dusting on the mountains in northern and central Taiwan, the temperatures remained low and the humidity high. This made for an energy tapping, nagging numbness; no matter what clothing we wore outside or coverings and heating we employed inside. With a relentless and depressing drizzle, or alternatively, a staccato rain beat, we were quite miserable for an extended period!
Even on Saturday, the rain again threatened and forced us to arm ourselves with brollys for the stroll down to SOGO, the building itself all freshly draped in Chinese New Year finery and lighting, seemingly shrugging off the appalling weather with a spectacular lantern and light show. Din Tai Feng was at its imperious best, wafting dumpling lullabies to us as soon as we entered the shop and purred down to the basement on the escalator! After our drug fix, we felt able to face the shoppers upstairs in Uniqlo for a quick squiz, before again heading to the basement for some specialty food supplies. Armed with such and picking up our ordered bread from Wendel's on the way home, we coseyed in with the girls under blankets, watched some TV, and generally relaxed.
Getting back to our steps walk, you'll probably realize now why we were so keen to get out and take advantage of the sun! The scooter ride up to the foot of the trail was bracing and we were ready for an onslaught on the calves and quads on the steps themselves! Just like push-ups, these steps never seem to get any easier and despite the fact we passed everyone we met on the way up, our time was pretty slow:we were huffing and puffing as we reached the top. We both reported sore legs this morning on our walk to school, so we had quite a workout! The macaques kept to themselves and we saw no evidence of their presence nor heard any telltale rummaging or shrieking. The track along the ridge-line at the top was pretty boggy, and Cass suggested that everyone who came up the steps should have to bring a bag of gravel to spread around up top: I like it! All too soon, in fact before we'd even completed our rapid descent, the sun's brief cameo had fizzled out behind thickening cloud yet again, so we decided that we'd made our best effort to "get some air" and headed back to the relative protection of home once more.
Photos: "The Moop" made an appearance on our tennis court where it stayed, statue-like, for quite some hours: it's a very strange bird! In Taiwan, parking shenanigans never cease to amaze: despite a legal park easy to access just behind him, this guy decided to mount the footpath on the corner and park in the illegal section, all while we enjoyed our Friday night beers at Uli's. Cass posed in front of the Chinese New Year adorned SOGO building, and we took a couple of shots in the brief sunshine on the steps. As threatened, another video is posted up top for your edification!