WEATHER 天氣
The weather has been perpetually grey and windy here for longer than I can remember. The memory of Kaohsiung during Chinese new year was one of clear blue skies, hot weather, and even one day of sunburn. Being ever so slightly north makes this archipelago much less like the Dordogne and more like Hastings on a cold March day.
When the sun does poke its head out, it gets warm extremely quickly, and you can go from riding on a scooter wrapped in a puffer-jacket and scarf, to driving along in just a t-shirt. Then there are the strange humidity days after a night of rain followed by a warm overcast day. Arriving at the school, we are met with puddles of water in the stairwell, and damp-feeling paper in the office. A lack of a dehumidifier or Air-con means we have no way of reducing the moisture levels, and our lovingly made displays start to peel and bubble up. When the sun does eventually hit, and stays about, i’m sure i’ll be wishing for colder climes, but currently it’s not particularly nice. The city doesn’t look charming in the rain unlike say, Edinburgh, and has none of the nice pubs or coffee houses that you could snuggle up in and take shelter when it does rain.
GYM: 健身房
We’ve now being going to our spit and sawdust gym for a week, working out 4 out of 7 days. Each day is a different body part, which means that the following day leaves us stiff and sore from the DOMS. Classes at TalkEasy finish at 9pm, so we mostly go then, although it’s better to go at 3pm so we can go to a canteen type eatery and have the perfect muscle building food for about £1.20. Despite the human body not achieving hypertrophy (muscle growth) for at least 4 weeks of training, I feel more toned (body dysmorphia). My strength is slowly returning, and I’m hoping my weight will slowly increase. Being the slightly OCD person that I am, I kept a track of my weight for about 2 years while at university. I had reached an all time low weight a few weeks back, just prior to finding a gym, and am going to chart my progress back up to my goal weight of 80kg by July. I’m currently at 73kg, so have a lot of weight to add, but i’m looking forward to fitting my trousers once again. Today we took delivery of boxing pads, so between sets we’ll box for a minute to increase our cardiovascular fitness, and reduce our cholesterol that has probably built up from eating too much egg fried rice and McDonald’s.
Scribbles in the Sand 