Typhoon

On Thursday, rain was forecast, which I consciously ignored and went out without an umbrella, as absolutely no rain was in sight. Big mistake! In Taiwan, particularly during typhoon season, rain starts very, very suddenly. Very heavy rain often only lasts for a couple of minutes, then slows down, possibly even disappears, just to very, very suddenly pour down again.

I managed to find some shelter, where I also managed to have my second almost working conversation in Chinese with a woman. She later kindly accompanied me under her umbrella to the next shelter. It took me quite a while to get back home, running from one shelter to the other between the heavy rain periods. Architecture here in Taipei is adapted to heavy rain in that the sidewalks are often covered by a ceiling provided by the first floor of an adjacent building. This helps, but in between you might still have to cross roads.

I used the waiting times to take some rain pictures:

I later learned that a typhoon can stretch over more than one day, and this was just the beginning. Today, two days later, I decided to do as the Taiwanese do, and leave the dorm only if really necessary. Here in Taipei we are on the very edge of Usagi. For me, this is really, really bad weather, however, according to the typhoon warnings, it is even much more severe in the south of Taiwan and soon hitting Hongkong. I can’t imagine how that feels like.

For now, I’ll take the risk and run some 100m to 7/11 to get some food. Hopefully, I’ll return .