Typhoon Chanchu

Well, you always ask me what's new when i talk to you and usually i don't have much to say... but today i do for a change...

a TYPHOON...
as you may know a typhoon is the same basic concept as a hurricane except it rotates in the opposite direction and doesn't usually get to be as powerful as hurricanes...

well, i am not sure if it hit the news in the us but i know it did in australia and the uk... It was caled Typhoon number 1, the first one of this year, or tyhpoon chanchu... which is the cantonese way of saying pearl... (what a coincidink)

At first we heard about it because it was headed for hong kong and the hong kong channels were talking about it... then we found out that it made a turn for us... i was like ok no prob, been there done that... so on tuesday we prepped a bit cuz it was supposed to come in wednesday night... my chinese classes at the university were cancelled and so we just walked around a bit on the windy, rainy day ... it was fun going out in the afternoon with all the rain... we took some pictures... and bought some food at the last booths in the market just before they closed...

then it was to the house for the evening to sit out the storm... we were board just listening to the rain and wind ... we were playing games and reading books... i was studying some chinese since i had missed class... uneventful night, until we decided to take a shower, we get in the bathroom and the lights go out... luckily i had set out a candle and lighter where i knew they'd be and our water heater is powered by a small propane tank in the bathroom so we showered happily...

then mario realized something! that night was the final game of the champions league... which is a big game for all fans of european football clubs... now, we had no electricity, so mario was quite fussy... we had two friends a block away that had electricity and were watching the game.... it was getting strong outside but we contemplated going... it would be an adventure... it was about 11 ... so we went outside to scope out the landscape...

we go downstairs and find that the whole street in front of us is flooded altho the wind doesn't feel prohibitively bad... until... mario went to the corner... and was blown back by shock at the strength of the wind... he ran like an escaping cockroach to the stairway door and i followed... so ended our quest to see the champions league final...

we returned to our aboad and looked out the window, and continued reading and chatting... we went to bed and sometimes could hear the winds howling... but as usually i slept great all night... i'm a veteran at this tropical storm thing...

we had no damage at all to the apt... and the lights came back the next morning... we went outside to assess the damage... there was a tree down a block away... and we saw more trees down all over the city... however, amazingly, we didn't see one tree that fell into a building... the streets in shantou are all lined with trees... but somehow there was a miraculously fortunate wind on every street...

tragically, there were about 3 people who died in shantou... but they evacuated over 3000 people the day before the storm... about 40 were killed in the philippines before it got here so the chinese were serious about it...

the only downside for us was that we already normally have wednesday and thursday off... darn it... everyone else in town got two extra days off!