Last week was the end of the "plum rains" which is the name given to a time where there are tons of intermittent thunderstorms around the beginning of May. Which means now it's time for just unbelievable heat until the end of the year.
Yesterday I came up with the great plan to spend the day running a lot of outdoor errands. It wasn't until ducking into a mcdonald's around tea time that I realized that not only had i skipped lunch but that I hadn't had any water since leaving the house. I then started to daydream about my dinner, but only for all the water i would drink with my dinner.
But i didn't have to wait that long, as my friend rescued me by getting some cups of water with her ice cream. And the water was FANTASTIC! Besides the obvious reasons, what also made it great was that it was ice cold. Taiwanese think it's a mortal sin to drink cold water, so no homes or restaurants have cold water. The worst thing is when you get inside and somebody offers you some water, which you desperately need and you take a sip and it's actually hot water.
This is usually because all water has to be boiled, and on hot days it takes a long time to cool down. I combat this by having various plastic water pitches that I store water in, and boil new water every time one is empty, but there are always other containers which have water in it, so no need to wait.
But back to yesterday's water. The one exception to the "no cold water" law is American restaurants. Meaning chain places like Chili's will give you cold water. However for some reason I wasn't thinking that macdonald's would do this, so it was a great surprise when i took that first sip and it tasted like the water was straight from the arctic.
