An actual event

So we had something actually happen here! It was called typhoon Sinlaku. It was happening just as Ike was hitting the U.S. We thought it was probably for the best 'cause everyone back home wouldn't hear a thing about our circular weather and they wouldn't be worried.














This's what it looked like from our place. It was like a midwestern thunderstorm (minus the lightening) or a winter downpour in Seattle, but it didn't stop for three days. Really. They were expecting 50 cm of rain or a couple of feet. I think we got about 30 cm. You understand it's hard to be sure since we're still basically illiterate in Chinese and that's how most of the weather is reported.

We knew about it in advance, our schools closed down early, kinda like a snow day. And lots of people at our schools speak very good English and they'd talk about it with and around us, so we had some warning. There were also rumors of winds as high as 200 kilometers an hour, something like a class four hurricane, I think.

The TV news stations do the same thing here as in the States, they put some poor schmuck in a rain coat out on the coast with a microphone so we can see how bad it is. So the coastal areas and towns got hammered, but Taipei is more on the west of the island and the typhoon came in from the east, bounced off the island, and headed north. So we saw a lot of rain, and the winds were enough to keep most people indoors.

There were breaks that were quite pleasant, on Sunday we went out to breakfast and did a little shopping in the neighborhood. We were chased home by the heavy stuff and it didn't stop for at least the next ten hours. The damage to umbrellas here was just horrific, but that's about all we saw. Heck, I went running in the leading edge of it. How many times can you say you went running in a typhoon? It was windy, but not dangerous (there were still lots and lots of scooters around, how windy could it be?) and finally cool. Tho' I did get pretty wet. But here in the city we had some wind, lots of rain, and a day off from work.















But by Monday things had lightened and we had to go back to work. And by Tuesday we were back to clear skies.















On a completely different subject: I've been trying to get decent night shots for weeks. I finally figured out I have to use the fireworks setting and hold very still.

The neon and colored signs go up about three floors (in other parts of the city they go up four or five) so it makes for some pretty amazing city views. I always think of futuristic movies, like Blade Runner. But the colors and all the movement makes for an almost artistic collage of color and motion that can be almost overwhelming.















This's the same corner. The low yellow roof on the right is an open mall and Longshan Temple (that's the name of our neighborhood, Longshan Temple, we live across the road on the left, a block or two into the residental area).















This's downtown Taipei. You can see the size of the buildings and how far they go. This's a shot from the metro, and this line runs as an elevated train, so it's a couple floors above street level. I love seeing down these streets at all the things that seem familiar, like the buildings and the taxis, and the unfamiliar, like all the signs in Chinese. This's near my school. It's just past the trees on the right of the photo. You can't see anything, but there it is. Good 'ole #3 Kojen on Nanjing Road.















And this's looking over Wild Goose or Wild Duck park. It's a preserve or reserve, I think. The title in English changes depending on where you read it. But they have many sculptures of ducks, so maybe that's the name.

Right here we're under the highway. They have this huge wall (two or three floors) between the city and the traffic (which the highway above us goes over), and this park. So you have to walk up a couple flights of stairs to get here, but it you get some good views like this. We came from the right of this photo; we didn't walk from the cityscape in the background. This park follows the Danshui River, which runs through the city. So there's city in all directions from here. The core of Taipei is to the right, and the city in the background here is actually across the river. And it might look big, but it's a very compact city for 2.5 million or so.















This's an evening out. We do have friends here, well, mostly they're Marie's. Nick, on the right here, had turned 23. I don't even want to know how old the rest of our coworkers are. Jennifer is next to him, then Spencer, and Lee Anne is on the far left. These are some of the people Marie works with. And this's at a restaurant near Marie's school in a neighborhood called Shilin. I don't know the name of the place, but the teachers all call it the Indian Bar because of the neon Native American over the door. Hmm, should've gotten a shot of that.















This's the rest of the group. Several of these people are just friends of other people and met each other because they arrived through Reach to Teach. The green thing is the beer. The really cheap way is to have a bunch of friends and you order one of these things, which has four liters of beer for, I think I heard 300 or 400 NT. That's about $10 or $15. It's drinkable, but it's kinda like Bud or Coors. After living in Seattle and all the microbrews, it's a little short on taste. You can get lots of other beer here, but it's pretty pricey.

I did take pictures of the menu, for proof of we could've had Three Cups Frog, but the photo doesn't want to rotate, so it's tough to read. We also could've had Three Cups Chicken or Squid, Fish Chin, Fish Stomache, or Tentacles. I don't remember what we ordered, but it was good noodles, rice, battered fish, and peppered beef. Pretty cheap, too.















And just for fun, here we are waiting for the metro. Really, that's how I look when I'm waiting for the train. This far north, this line actually moves from underground to elevated. Pretty cool.















And this's riding the train home after a long day of teaching and an evening out. Good thing we don't have to be anywhere until tomorrow afternoon.

And I just realized that I'm slow on writing 'cause I like photos. Photos help and are more interesting than just a wall of text. But stupid Blogger takes minutes to upload just a couple of photos, so when I have eight or nine, it takes ten minutes or more before I have all the photos up. So, that's a bit of a speed bump between me and regular writing. But I'll keep on it. And maybe I'll get Marie to play along, soon.