■ 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.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
A Taiwanese man apologized on Friday after saying in a social media post that he worked with Australia to provide scouting reports on Taiwan’s team, enabling Australia’s victory in this year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC), saying it was a joke and that he did not hold any position with foreign teams or Taiwan’s sports training center. Chen Po-hao (陳柏豪) drew the rage of many Taiwan baseball fans when he posted online on Thursday night, claiming credit for Australia’s 3-0 win over Taiwan in the opening game for Pool C, saying he worked as a physical therapist with the national team and
RSS