No, it's not a big deal. I mean, the winds in the latest typhoon were clocked at 140 m.p.h. or maybe 165 (my dad heard 165 but BBC said the wind measuring system topped out at 140, so who knows), but we're fine. Some siding or roofing plastic was littering the streets the day after, oh, and I forgot to get a photo of this guy working on his roof in the middle of the storm. But really, no problems for us. No flooding, we got a day off school, which we couldn't do much with, but it was still nice to have a two day weekend. Normally we have to work some on Saturday, get Sunday off, and then have to put in hours on Monday, so that was kinda pleasant, tho' we don't get paid.
So, we didn't go to the beach like we'd planned. Bummer, but I did go running just ahead of the storm again. Running in Taipei is an odd exercise, pardon the pun. I do see other people running, but it seems like an unusual activity. I think 'cause of the heat and humidity. Personally, I gave up running during the day weeks ago. Running in the evening isn't bad at all, and I think it makes the days a bit more tolerable. I still come home covered in sweat and probably a fair amount of condensed humidity, but I'm surprised every time by how the heat helps me loosen up while I'm moving.
Getting out of the city is an odd adventure. What I can't figure out is how I found a path to the park in the first place. I knew where the river was, so I started running east, but I had to bend right after a couple of blocks, then cross a major street and bend a little left, then cross an off ramp and run up three flights of stairs, run over the bridge and back down (which includes running down stairs, under the bridge, back up stairs and finally down more stairs). This takes about six minutes.
This's the Wild Duck, Goose Park Marie and I visited a couple weeks ago. Here, I can run without worry of scooters, cars, bikes, random pedestrians, and cumulative exhaust. Well, the bikes and pedestrians are still there, but in the evening there's far fewer of both on the river trail. Not a lot of lights there, but it's a comfortable trail. I haven't tripped yet. And the city views are just great. I keep thinking about taking the camera, but 360 degree views of a major city at night from a dark nature preserve just don't translate to film.
Oh, really funny. Go running in Taipei with your iPod and have James Brown's "Living in America" and Blues Brothers doing "Goin' Back to Miami" on there. First, it's a ridiculous sense of juxtaposing the location and the music, then it really hammers in that you're not in the U.S. any more.
Next time, I expect, we'll go to the beach and I'll have plenty of photos of playing in the sun, surf, and sand. There has to be an upside to 30 C this late in the year, right?
Showing posts with label typhoon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label typhoon. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
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.
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.
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