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Taiwan News Quick Take

■ WEATHER

Cold air mass coming

Temperatures may drop to as low as 12ºC on Wednesday as a cold air mass from the north is expected to move south this week, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The bureau said that temperatures started falling yesterday as seasonal winds from the northeast became stronger, with highs in the north and east dropping to 26ºC to 27ºC. It also rained in northern and eastern Taiwan, as well as on Matsu. For today, the bureau has forecast that highs in the north and the east may drop 3ºC more to between 23ºC to 24ºC. Lows will be around 20ºC, it said. Temperatures are expected to drop nationwide tomorrow, with the highs in the north down to 15ºC. Residents in the north and central Taiwan may see the temperature fall to 12ºC.



■ EVENTS

Hotel welcomes blind guests

The Grand Hotel hosted a party yesterday to welcome 35 visually-impaired Japanese tourists and their family members, as well as 30 guide dogs that came with them as special guests in their deluxe rooms. The tourists, who arrived over the weekend, learned about the tour through the All Japan Guide Dog User Association. The tour is part of the bureau’s marketing strategy to target Japanese tourists. It was inspired by the Japanese movie Quill (再見了,可魯), which was adapted from a true story of a Labrador that was trained to become a guide dog and changed many blind people’s lives in Japan. Last year, the Tourism Bureau invited the association’s representatives to come and inspect Taiwan on behalf of the blind tourists. The association then arranged the tour. Members of the group are from all over Japan and will return on Wednesday. They will be visiting tourist attractions in northern Taiwan that include Taipei Baoan Temple (保安宮), Yehliu Geo-Park (野柳地質公園) and Jiufen (九份).



■ CULTURE

Dancer to open Games

An 83-year-old Taiwanese dancer, cherished as a national treasure, has been invited to perform at the opening ceremony of the 2009 World Games next July in Kaohsiung City, officials said yesterday. Lee Tsai-er (李彩娥), a renowned dancer and dance instructor in southern Taiwan, and her students will be part of the program to entertain the 4,600 athletes from some 100 countries when the Games opens on July 16 for 11 days of competition in various athletic events. Born in 1926, Lee was Taiwan’s first dancer to pursue further training in the theory and skills of classical ballet and creative dance in Japan. She returned to Taiwan at 19 and began to combine ballet skills with Taiwanese folk dancing and modern dance. Although Lee is now a great-grandmother, she still views dance as her life and has never talked about retirement. She still spends at least two hours each day practicing various dance skills and training her dance class students.



■ ATHLETICS

Run sees record turnout

The annual Taichung running event was held yesterday in the city, with Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) on hand to cheer on the record number of runners who participated. Taichung Deputy Mayor Hsiao Chia-chi (蕭家旗) led the 23,000 runners from a city park early yesterday morning in the 27th year of the run. Following the run, a wide range of activities were staged in the park where the run began. The city government, which organized the event, announced that next year’s run will be organized as a marathon.


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