Taiwan remembered

We are about 3 weeks away from the

Dragon Boat Festival.

The weather is very unstable.

I remember Peggy, one of my first Chinese collegues in Taiwan, telling us,

"You can't put away your quilt until the Dragon Boat Festival".

So in theory, that would mean that on the 12th of June summer would be here in all its brute force.

Maybe I should stop complaining about the rain.   At least the weather is still "cool".

This was my first experience of Dragon Boat Races.

Changhua's expat team went for some training in Lukang to get tips from the local boys.

Not everybody was impressed.

The coach put our boys in the boat.

They didn't quite know how to get this boat going...

It took a lot of deliberation and discussion.   The coach made it look so easy!

A few more brave attempts at the oars...

And they're off, oars moving more or less in a Mexican wave sort of way!

But hey, we cheered and clapped and sent them off into the unknown.   They reached the end of the canal, exhausted, only to realize with a sinking feeling that they had to row back to the start.

Needless to say, they were not happy when they finally reached the pier again.

Our boys won the expat trophy!

They were elated and thanked us for our support, braving the scorching sun.   We pointed out that they were the only expat team...  

That night, at the New York, our favourite hangout, Vincent mysteriously ran out of hamburgers and we had to go home hungry.

hah! that was my first and last involvement with the Dragon Boat Races.