Always an Adventure...

There have been quite a few typhoons in Taiwan this year, including one just two days before I returned to Taiwan. This past week has kind of felt like a waiting game, since we had slow moving Typhoon Tembin moving past, and then looping around for another pass. We got almost no rain in Yilan, but people in the south as usual were hit pretty hard. People were really preparing for this one in a way I don't usually see though, literally battening down the hatches, taking down signs, taping up windows and so on. But fortunately, this one was a near miss. Still a couple of months left in typhoon season, especially if this ends up being like my first year in Taiwan, 2004, when we had a typhoon as late as December. Anyways, all that to say, I found this fascinating blog/site with visualizations of tropical storms on a world map. It's definitely worth checking out! IDV User Experience: Hurricanes Flip-Book Style : Here are 33 years of hurricane seasons lobbed into a bloated and c...

After being hit by the second super typhoon in 2 weeks, I asked my students to make a list of their Top 10 things to do during a typhoon: 10. play cards 9. call old friends and chat 8. watch TV 7. wash your car 6. eat instant noodles 5. listen to the radio 4. sleep 3. have a romantic candlelight dinner 2. study 1. go to the supermarket Alternatively, I also had them create a list of the top 10 things NOT to do during a typhoon: 10. fly a kite 9. go surfing 8. have a BBQ 7. go to school 6. sleep beside the window 5. ride a bike 4. go to look at the waves 3. wear a skirt 2. study 1. walk your dog Notes: *Almost every group had "Go to the supermarket" on their to do list. I suggested that they should do that before the typhoon, not during! *There were varying opinions on whether studying was taboo or not as a typhoon activity. *Wash your car was in order to save on water! Some students also thought you should not shower during a typhoon for the same reason. I've learned that...

While I was blissfully ignorant in Taipei, the typhoon was busy tearing up trees, flattening road signs, knocking over scooters, and more. As I took the bus from Taipei to Yilan, I saw higher water levels in the rivers than I'd ever seen before. When we got closer, I saw water spouting up the manhole covers (yes, kinda like in The Day After Tomorrow) and almost every tree in the center divider was either bent or pulled out at its roots. This is definitely the worst typhoon damage I've seen in this city in my 4 short years. When I got to my apartment, I knew something was wrong when the street lights on the corner were dark. Our power was out. I climbed up to my 5th floor home and opened my door. The first thing I noticed was that the sliding screen door at the entrance to my apartment was at a 90 degree angle (NOT how it was supposed to be, flat against the glass door). I was too shocked to take a picture, but I should have. Fortunately it's fixed now. Next thing I notice...

Sinlaku is moving sluggishly over Taiwan . It was only moving at about 4km/hour at one point! This means that we are getting downpours and wind from it for much longer than usual, effectively ruining the Moon Festival weekend. I ended up riding this one out in Taipei , since I didn’t want to brave the trip back to Yilan, and I didn’t want to try driving my scooter through the wind and driving rain. It was fun to have company during this typhoon, and so far I’ve: made a salad, watched some episodes of the Office (not sure if I love it or hate it), braved the rain in search of a tea shop, went to Lisa and Peter’s for an indoor BBQ, and watched the Bucket List (fantastic movie). Tomorrow I’m hoping the typhoon will move on so I can go home! I might have left a window open…….. Other things I’ve been wanting to blog about: I finally got my scooter license!! Being my first full license ever, I was very proud of it! So now I can drive legally in Taiwan . And I love it! Things I L...

Last week's camp was a lot of fun! After a week of "cool" teenagers who don't like to do actions to songs or show they're excited about anything, it was great to be with a group of fun, very easily amused kids! The junior high week was challenging for me, partly because I think I was expecting the students to be more mature than they were. I was expecting the kids last week to be restless though, and planned accordingly! The pictures from last week will be coming from a really cool team of people from a church in western Taiwan who came to Yilan for the week. They took care of the first half of the camp, and then I showed up to teach English. There were almost 40 kids, most from the local elementary school. Their English level was REALLY low, quite a difference from the "city" kids of the week before. I actually ended up teaching a lot in Chinese. Anyways, I had a lot of fun, the kids were cute and loved most of the activities we did! On the last day the...

We just had a crazy week of camp that ended yesterday! 4 days of early mornings, prayer, chasing 13 year old boys, making a video, singing praise songs, teaching English, getting to know new people, and a lot more.... I'll have to write more about it soon... as for today, I thought I'd have to work, but we ended up having a typhoon day! It's nice to catch up on my sleep, but I'm bummed that Friday Night Live was canceled, since we invited our students from camp to go! Anyways, my leg is doing amazingly well... i managed all week being fairly active (but abstaining from any running games) and I can walk and do stairs pretty well... besides pain and swelling at the end of the day, life is slowly getting back to normal... I'll go see the doctor next week when I get back to Yilan. Speaking of which, I have a kids camp next week in the afternoons! Let's hope it goes well! I actually don't teach kids very often at all anymore, and I do prefer teaching high school...