The Typhoon blew north

 It rained--a lot. But that was about the extent of our first typhoon experience. Last week at this time I was walking myself to the grocery store late in the evening (still too chicken to try the bus option) so that I could procure some milk and other necessities for my children in case the typhoon came and the city shut down for a few days. I also thought I'd best boil some extra water in case the electricity or water lines had any troubles. Basically, I really didn't know what to expect so my natural, reasonable response was to panic :)

Ben's work gave him a link to a nifty website (in English) that shows the projected path of an impending typhoon as well as a list of cities and counties in Taiwan with any indications of "work cancelled / school cancelled." It turns out that Taichung was not granted its tropical version of a snow day--somewhat to everyone's disappointment. Talking with church members the Sunday afterwards, people apparently often still go out shopping or to the movies or whatever on typhoon days because, by law, only government businesses have to close and many others view it as a prime opportunity for sales. Funny how people are.

This photo is obviously not of the darkened sky with heavy rains. Didn't quite capture that scene this go around. Nor did I manage to capture the pollution-free patches of blue sky that appeared right after the several days of rains. We could actually see the Taiwanese mountains finally revealed in the near distance (from our other window...not this one).

The first 3 weeks we were here turned out to be an anomaly with its complete rain-free status. It was another blessing to add to our ever expanding list because life got a bit trickier with the rains. Namely, getting Julien to and from school all of a sudden presented quite the challenge. The afternoon of the first storm, I dutifully got ready to head out to pick him up at the designated time. I put the stroller's rain cover on and grabbed our umbrellas and rolled my linen pants up a bit. Hesitant but determined, Ryley, Theo and I approached the lobby doors to exit our building when the English-speaking gal at the management desk intercepted us and said "no, too dangerous to walk!" What?!? Rain had never stopped me from doing anything before. And it wasn't about to stop me now from retrieving my son from school at precisely the time I was supposed to, especially when I had left him crying in the arms of his teacher 8.5 hours prior! But seeing as how the rain was bouncing up from the ground and there was some undeniable lightening in the mix, I didn't resist the offer for them to call me a cab. The problem was, however, that times like those make the taxi lines all give out busy signals. Fifteen very long minutes went by and I started chomping at the bit. The desk attendant finally proposed that she call my son's school to let them know I would be late (I still have no phone). Brilliant. Up the elevator, scrounge around for the phone number, and back down to the lobby. I was a bit more willing to wait when the message had been delivered, but I still felt somewhat uncomfortable with the fact that the manager of the management desk himself was out in the rain, on the street trying to hale down a taxi to drive me a mere half a mile! I could have been there and back 3 times over during all that time! I was about to take my leave, insisting that the rain had in fact let up a bit, when a taxi finally pulled up. Guardsman, doorman and management-man all assisted us into the car and I could only hope someone explained to the driver where exactly I wanted to go and that I'd need him to wait for me as I picked up Julien and came back. Long story short (as least shorter than I'm naturally inclined to make it) we got Julien home just fine and the next day in his parent-correspondence notebook Joanne had written a note that she heard we had troubles so on rainy days Julien could take the baby bus home. At a per ride rate, it costs the same as that hassle of a taxi ride. He has taken it several time since :)