Q: Where are the good beaches?
A-Hok says:
If cleanliness is your concern, the good ol’ Environmental Protection Administration in June listed Taipei County’s New Jinshan Bathing Beach (新金山) as the cleanest beach on the island for swimming.
Taipei County’s Fulong Beach (福隆), Miaoli County’s Chiting (崎頂) and Tunghsiao beaches (通霄), and Taitung County’s Shanyuan Beach (杉原) are also good choices.
However, if gorgeous weather, a nice stretch of sand, and [not so] crystal clean waters in a million shades of blue is more your style, then A-hok would humbly suggest you visit the beaches in Kenting, and on Lanyu and Penghu islands.
Shawei (沙尾), which stretches for 1,000m in Penghu’s Chipei Islet (吉貝嶼), is known as the “golden beach.” It enjoys six months of summer sun a year and is said to be one of the most beautiful beaches in Taiwan.
Kenting’s South Bay (南灣), a heavenly beautiful but impossibly packed beach almost year-round, with soft sand, eternal sunshine and a gazillion stalls selling iced coffee and popsicles, is a beach every tourist dreams of.
Those looking for a reclusive spot can consider Lanyu (蘭嶼) island – with only 2,000-some residents and sandy beaches all around looking out to endless ocean — the whole island can be your backyard beach paradise.
Q: Where can I find out in English/Spanish/Filipino whether or not the offices and schools in Taipei will be closed during a typhoon?
A-hok says:
The Taipei City’s Information and Tourism Department told me that the city’s Web site (www.taipei.gov.tw) would replace its homepage with information from the city’s disaster prevention and rescue information page (http://tdprc2.tfd.gov.tw/TaipeiCityEms1_public/) at times when typhoons affect northern Taiwan.
The page provides updates on typhoon-related information in Chinese and English, and you can check whether the Taipei City Government has announced office and school closings for typhoon days.
You can also call the Taipei City Government’s 24-hour hotline by dialing 1999 to inquire about the possibility of office and schools closings on typhoon days.
The typhoon hotline offers inquiry services in English as well. Unfortunately, neither the Web site nor the hotline offer Spanish or Filipino services, the department said.
Radio Taiwan International does generally make typhoon-related announcements in their around-the-clock news programs in several languages, including Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Thai and Vietnamese. You could check the broadcast schedule online (www.rti.org.tw) and find the news broadcast in the language you need.
If you have something you’d like to ask, please write to community@taipeitimes.com.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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