Typhoon Soulik

Here in Taiwan we get typhoons. I went to work like any normal day on Friday, July 12th and taught a few classes like normal. The government makes the announcement of whether schools will be closed because of a typhoon. They made that announcement by the afternoon and so when 6:00pm came around everyone was to go home and stay indoors.

A typhoon day is kind of like a snow day except is applies to everyone. A typhoon day means that no students need to go to school that day, including the teachers. A typhoon day, unlike a snow day back home, also means that EVERYTHING is to close by at certain time, so no one is to go to work. So, after work on that Friday, Matthew and I went to the grocery store. This is probably the only time the grocery stores are actually busy; everyone is stacking up on food. We went home, ate some instant noodles, played board games, watched movies. Nothing really exciting. However, I did enjoy the most beautiful sleep that night; I like storms.

The next day, work was also cancelled. By Saturday evening things had calmed down and we went out for a walk. In our town there is a man-made river which is always empty and dry. It was constructed for this purpose, to aid in the prevention of flooding of the city during a typhoon. This is what the river looked like that evening (I'm not sure how deep it is, but it is deep enough that if you fell in you would have a hard time climbing out).

This walk was refreshing but short as it started raining again; I guess it wasn't quite done. The next day (Sunday, July 14) though, Matthew and I wanted to see what we could find outside. We came across a number of fallen fruit trees that day. Here is what we found while scavenging.

A papaya, little bananas, oranges? (I'm not actually sure what that last one is) And by Monday everything was back to normal.