Typhoon and Moon Festival

Saturday 18/09/10

As we were expecting a storm at the end of the day. I went for a cycle up the mountain (this time on my bike not pascal's) in the morning. A huge rain cloud came over as I was on the way up. The start of the typhoon? It poured heavily for 30 minutes. When I got to the top I didn't want to take the usual route down - wet ground meant death very likely - so I tried to find another route that I used to use. I saw a line of palm trees. That like looked familiar. I made my way through a village on the top of the mountain, and before long found the road I was looking for. As I turned onto it, another cyclist came out of nowhere down the same path. I followed him. I was glad he was there. He knew the route, so I could brake when he did. After a 5 U bends; we reached the huge dual carriageway that never had anything on it. We were flying down. Far below was Yuanlin the high speed rail and a sports village on my left. I overtook a few scooters on the way down. I must have been doing at least 40mph. And no-one in the way or behind!
I flew under the railway track and started looking for the turn off. If I missed it, then it would be a long trek back up the hill. There it was! I just missed a scooter coming out on the wrong side of the road. And then ploughed on and down through the houses and parks of Baigoshan. I was still raining when I got back to the house.The plan that evening was to go to High Relax with the other teachers. I left the scooter in the safety of Pascal's garage and cycled into town. There was already a slight wind but nothing more than Yorkshire. We went to the 7/11 to stock up on drinks and nibbles for the evening. There was a TV in the shop which showed the huge circle the size of Taiwan just to the east of the island. It was to hit the east coast at 2am.
At 9pm we found out that High Relax was closed: this made sense. We figured that most places would be closed and so Mere and Mike invited people back to their flat on the 11th Floor. A great place to see the coming storm. Pascal, Andrew and Angela all turned up soon after and we shared Taiwan tales. At 2am as forecasted, the wind did indeed pick up and we had to closed the windows and doors.
I didn't get much sleep that night. The wind kept screaming outside and felt like it was going to rip the panes right out. 3 hours it raged.

Sunday 19/09/10
The town was chilled when we got up. There was still a persistent drizzle outside. And the town was littered with dirt and small debris from the storm. We went out in search of breakfast and there was an eerie quiet everywhere. Our usual cafe was closed but the breakfast burger place down the road was still open. There was little to do post Typhoon, everywhere was closed and everywhere was wet. I for a walk up to the nearest Tao Temple with Mere that had a huge founder guy stood on top of it with one foot on a snake and the other on a turtle. You could climb into his head. It was amazing. The art work inside the temple was equally impressive. On the way home I managed to find a DVD shop that had Kung Fu Panda and forced Mere and Mike to watch it.

Monday 20/09/10
The Taipei Times revealed that although a lot of places in the south and west of the country had been flooded and transport had been damaged; no one had died in the weekend's typhoon.

Tuesday 21/09/10
I went for another cycle up the mountain today. I felt better on this one; like I was finally getting back into my rhythm. I got to Hemei too early again! So I went to find food again. I had some lovely papaw, some sushi snack and to finish I had what looked like a granary roll. I took a bite it was sweet. A bun! I thought OK that'll be nice. I took another bite and a bit of fluff came away. Fluffy pork! AHHH What a horrible waste of perfectly good bread! I had to buy some Cheetos to take the taste away. And then some chocolate to take away the taste of the Cheetos. By the time they opened the school, I'd eaten a lot.
The classes were a lot better behaved today. I got a free drink from the school for my help! They asked what I wanted 'Honey tea?' I asked. They rolled up their noses: very sweet teacher! They suggested fruit tea. So I agreed. When it arrived I took a slurp, it may not have been honey, but inside floated little soft sweets! Just what I needed.

Wednesday 22/09/10
Today was Moon Festival Day, so all normal schools were shut as were most bushibans and cram-schools. This was a day for people to spend with their families. During the day there were various ceremonies happening by the temples, including singing and dancing traditional music.
In the evening Yuanlin's sky was lit up by fireworks. Our neighbours had the karaoke out and were strangling cats for most of the day. I will have to record it next time. I can't begin to count the number of inharmonious noises that drown out the street.

Thursday 23/09/10

Today it felt weird to be back at school after a day off. I was back at Hemei again.

Friday 24/09/10

I had wanted to go out with the Changhua teachers tonight, but I forgot to organise it during the week. Planning things last minute without a phone is a bit tricky.

Saturday 25/09/10

Today I went for another epic cycle, I was hoping that Mere would be able to join me tomorrow on the same route and wanted to see how long it would take. It was a beautiful day but we had no water left in the house... so I bought an energy drink at a shop at the top of the mountain. "Poco Sweat" it was called (mmm delicious!) This drink did give me energy but it failed to quench my thirst at all, in fact I felt drier after drinking it. After an hour, I went into autopilot and became really aware of all the smells around me. Tropical vegetation, that green smell, freshly picked tea, pineapples growing on the ground.

I stopped again and bought some orange juice... still didn't really get rid of the thirst.

When I got back home, I scootered to the local store and bought apples, bananas, oranges, plums and a yellow watermelon. I took them home and chopped them all up into a fruit salad. After eating this and drinking 2 litres of lemon and tea sprite (yeah, not lime as you'd expect the green oval to represent!) the thirst was gone.

Sunday 26/09/10

This morning I finally got Mere to cycle up Baigoshan Mountain. She'd always been keen, but we'd never found a time cool enough. So at 7am we made our way from Yuanlin towards the mountain. The road to the mt base took 15 minutes. I laughed at Mere's expression when the hill started to climb. ("int physics brilliant!") There was a man and his teenage lad cycling ahead of us. The kid was veering across the road (like I do when a path is too steep) and unintentionally blocking our way so we stopped to let them get ahead of us. I offered Mere my bike, as hers was a regular road bike with 7 gears and a lovely basket on the front (yes I was jealous) and mine had gears a plenty. It was a very strange sensation riding a women's bike up a hill. My legs were moving in directions that they'd never gone before. We both found that if we didn't stop it was OK... And less than an hour later, we had reached the top of Baigoshan. Triumphant! Victorious! and not alone! ? The little village at the top was heaving with cyclists. A couple hundred at least. There were stalls selling bike accessories It was always so dead when I'd been through: obviously Sunday is Taiwan Cycle Day between the hours of 6 and 9!

Monday 27/09/10

This morning Mere took me to the Yuanlin Swimming Pool. I was quite impressed 2 things: how fast Mere could swim and how many hot pools, sauna and water massages there were in the place. In half an hour I had swum about 6 widths to Mere's 60 odd. I was delighted when she suggested stopping and trying out the 'relax' area.

The water jets turned my skin red they were so powerful, but I was assured it was all for the greater good. There were 4 different hot baths each with a different quality.