Leila's First Typhoon
Trip Start
Sep 18, 2007
1
12
28
Trip End
Apr 17, 2009
Taoyuan,
Taiwan
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Anyway, by 10:30 PM it was a done deal. There was indeed a Typhoon on its way to Taiwan and there would be no classes on Saturday. We all stayed up late watching movies and stuff and then went to bed late.
Saturday morning I woke up around 11 AM to discover total pandemonium outside. The wind was just howling and the rain was pounding down in a trillion different directions.
I had decided the night before that I would make a grocery/food run on Saturday morning cuz I was running low on stuff and needed some basic items (eggs, milk, bread, etc...). I put on my work-out pants...my hoodie and flip flops (I think wearing running shoes would have been a silly thing to do). I was just about to head out when Meghan came out of her room and asked me if I would mind waiting around an extra 10 minutes for her to get ready cuz she wanted to come with me. I gladly said that I would. It's always nice to bring a friend along when you have to brave a Super Typhoon. LOL. We took an umbrella with us and geared up and said some words of encouragement to one another before we stepped out into the fray.
Our umbrella lasted just about a minute, I think. This super blast of wind hit us and it (the umbrella) was snapped like a twig. I had a rain coat on to protect my upper body...but Meghan just went out in her regular clothes. She was soaking wet in about a minute as well. My bottom half was all wet...and my hood wasn't staying on...so my hair was totally soaked in a short time as well. We linked arms (Meghan is very light and I feared she would be blown away) and trudged through the storm. When we finally made it to Carrefour (which thankfully was open) we discovered that everyone in the same city had had the same idea. Well, the same idea but with cars. LOL. Everyone in the store seemed nice and dry. Here we were...already oddities (for being foreigners) and now soaking wet and dripping all over the place. We were just laughing it up though. We were loving every second of it! I had promised Meghan a nice breakfast for braving the ST (Super Typhoon) with me and so we went about gathering all the ingredients and materials necessary for the amazing breakfast that we were certainly going to enjoy later on.
I had brought my digital camera with me and I captured some amazing video of the wind speeds and the torrential rains. We were seriously just having way too much fun with mother nature! Meghan even did some funny shots and pretended to be a weather woman in the eye of the storm. I will be posting the videos shortly.
On our way back we realized that things had definitely gotten worse since we had first ventured out. The winds had picked up and so had the rain. We saw scooters knocked over everywhere and debris was starting to be tossed around and become deadly projectiles. We hurried back to the dorm and then had some wonderful hot showers to heat our bones up again. I made scrambled hot sauce eggs with onion and green peppers. We heated up this baguette we bought at Carrefour and had some sweet cakes as well. The bakery section there was just absolutely amazing and we had had a hard time narrowing down the items that we actually wanted to buy.
Some 1-2 hours later I think we hit the absolute worst patch of the Typhoon. You couldn't see two feet in front of you outside cuz it was raining so hard. The wind was just merciless and the howling noises it made were just incredible. The windows in the dorm began rattling...but thankfully none of them broke. I would imagine that they build places that are Typhoon-resistant. Some people who had slept in chose that moment (don't ask me why) to venture out and go on their own private food runs. We wished them luck and hoped that they would make it back in once piece.
The storm blew over some 2 hours later and it downgraded to just a lot of rain. The winds died down drastically and even the rain tapered down as well later on. Meghan and I ventured out to a bar later on in the night and had some interesting electronic dictionary conversations with people at the bar. We hit this other bar 'Woo Lounge' on our way back home and tried teaching this flaming gay Chinese man how to move his hips. We weren't very successful...LOL!
Anyway...found out today that some 12 people were injured as a result of the ST in Taipei and 4 people actually died. The ST moves on to China now and they had some super bad weather in Vietnam as well. Thankfully people said that since winter is coming very soon...Typhoon season is over and we should not see anymore ST crazyness til August of next year.
So ya, my first ST was really cool to watch and experience...but I don't think I would like to see many more of them! Insanity!
