Monday, September 05, 2005

Typhoon14

I have been trying to leave silly comments on other people’s blogs but the Internet is SOOOOOO slow right now; at home and at work. It might be due to the typhoon. I am going to blame everything on the typhoon today.

Holly, have fun moving into your new place. I am all excited for you!
Medea, please take care in this typhoon!!!!

Yes there is one big ass typhoon coming.
Medea has some more detailed info on it. She has had much more experience with big ass typhoons.
I live in a slightly protected area that is pretty lucky. Landslides are the big thing here. The river crested over the dyke one year but that was due to the city building a bridge at that time and having screwed up the riverbed.
We have a few mountains that offer quite a bit of protection. The neighboring cities tend to get hit much harder than we do, as they are closer to the ocean.
There has only been one time where my eyebrows raised in question, and that was last year. Our new apartment windows were getting battered so hard you could hear them creaking. One of my students had a window break in his apartment during that storm. It is not really very surprising if you consider that all of our windows are only single pane. Totally useless.
We have had a few damaged roofs, but all were REALLY old or unkempt. We have also had a few roads made a mess of due to landslides. Landslides are the real reason why the mountains look so clean here. There are almost no houses on them, only scattered tea fields. This is not because mountains are the perfect place for tea; it is actually ten times more expensive. Mountains are just a dangerous place to live and the government has some very strict rules about building on or near them.
That and I live on the second floor, so am generally not worried about floods and what not.
We have never lost power because of a typhoon. The only time we have ever lost power was because of a thunder and lightening storm. It was pretty big and the power grid nuclear reactor people thought they should shut things down until the storm let up.

The only problems that I have with typhoons are getting JiXiang to daycare and me to work.
I have biked to work before, and can do it. It can actually be fun IF the wind is at your back. If not I just walk and push my bike, as it is actually faster that way. I have an amazing rain jacket that my friend Kim found for me and I have rain pants. I am not really a problem.
JiXiang is.
The first very mild typhoon that we had to deal with ended up easy. We walked to daycare with her stroller covered with its special rain jacket. She did not get even a little wet. With the bike things are different.
Yesterday I picked her up and it was raining, not hard but not lightly either. I put on her Little Mermaid rain jacket and Hello Kitty hat (all pink of course) and we got home no trouble. I also carried an umbrella for extra protection. I realized that I need to find her some rain pants as her legs got a little wet.
Two weeks ago we were hit with another typhoon, but mom was here, so I left JiXiang at home with her. Mom had a blast hanging out the balcony door marveling at the wind.
At first she was all:
-This is not so bad. It is just like a bad storm at home.
Then the wind really started and she was all ‘oohhh’s and ‘Ahhhhh’s.
She was making grand attempts to get pictures of the wind. Not sure how one does that, but she was trying.
Tomorrow the typhoon is supposed to hit our area. Li is on holidays so he has to be dad all day. If it comes a bit early and things look pretty iffy at the end of the day, he has to pick her up in a taxi.
There is also the possibility that it will speed through here tonight and all will be well, extremely hot, and very muggy tomorrow.
Weather reports don’t work overly well in these situations.
But we are fine and there are no worries in our neighborhood.
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Posted by (Top)Andrea::9/05/2005 :: 1 Comments:

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