Famous! Moon Festival Appearance

Jeff is famous! We attended a Moon Festival Barbecue put on by a local business owner. I think it's main purpose was to promote local political candidates, however the barbecue and noodles did the trick. Jeff was interviewed by a local television station and was on television that night. The few people we know here saw it on the news and sent it our way.

Check us out eating the free food, and hear Jeff's interview here. Skip the ad, and then watch the video with sound.

Fancy a fan, or some tissues, with a political candidates face emblazoned on it?

Half a day at Cijin Island

The weather was warm, the weekend arrived, I was in town - it was time to check out some sights. Jeff and I caught the MRT down to Sizihwan and then hopped on a ferry over to Cijin Island. The ferry takes a whole 5 minutes or so to reach the island and costs a whole $30NT ($1 AUS) for a return trip. Not a bad deal at all.

The walk down to the ferry

The view of Kaohsiung from the ferry

A traditional rickshaw

Fancy some brown toilet icecream???

Temples and scooters - common sights

We had hoped to go for a swim and cool off as the humidity was stupidly high, but the beach didn't look clean and the sand was black - not that appealing.

Instead, we settled for a fresh seafood lunch and walk through the markets.

While I shopped unsuccessfully for hats, Jeff enertained a Taiwanese high school student wanting to practice his English. A favourite line "Do you enjoy sports?" - text book English.

Back to the mainland we walked up to the British Consulate and escaped from the tropical rain.

Off the bridge...



...follow the signs to the sonsulate



Up the stairs...



...past the stray cats...

and up to the consulate for some beautiful views.

Engrish

We attended a business sponsored Moon Festival barbeque in our neighbourhood. It was smokey, loud and attended by happy people.

I however, was impressed by how someone could get the dessert so wrong.

Creme caramel maybe, brulee. Even pudding?



Nope, in Taiwan it is Putting!



Typhoon Fanapi is well and truly here

The wind woke me up at about 3am Sunday morning. Then came the rains. Then came the weather report on Tealit and  the Taiwan Central Weather Bureau. Typhoon Fanapi hit this island and would work its way west to China by 2am Monday morning. In the mean time however, we brace ourselves inside our apartment, hooked to seasons of Entourage and the odd break with some Nat Geo HD television and crackers.

I took some video on my camera around midday.

That was before the storm worsened. Now it is 7pm and the exposed southern part of our apartment is being rocked by the wind and rain. We have exhausted our meagre supply of towels soaking up the uninvited water. I am thankful for a supply of power and water (touch wood) unlike some of the other areas of Taiwan.

Our county, Kaohsiung, has received at least 490mm of rainfall since the morning, while poor Pingtung has received 690mm causing landslides and evacuations.

Schools have already been cancelled for tomorrow. The typhoon is set to leave the island by sunrise, but that does not mean that everyone can leave the safety of their dwellings. Rain will continue even though the winds will disperse. This is a level 3 typhoon (5 is the worst), meaning there is flooding and road damage, so things will not get back to normal for a little while.

There have been three deaths in the northern part of the island. Two of those occured in the county of Taoyuan, where I went with a school group during the week to a centre for the disabled while on a camp in Longtan. It is more than a day off work tomorrow, but a terrible natural disaster.

Typhoon #1 in Taiwan

We knew it was coming. We had heard that typhoons were common, and should be expected. We arrived in Kaohsiung, Taiwan at the beginning of August and it had rained every day at some point. The Taiwanese Ministry of Education states that students should attend school for 200 days of the year. That is about 30 more days than the average Australian or British school. So it comes as no surprise that teachers and students were eagerly awaiting their first day off school for a typhoon day.

I didn't know. Jeff left early for an Athletic meeting in Taipai. He woke me to tell me it was raining very heavily. It was before 6am, so I went back to sleep. I went and waited for the school bus just after 7am. I waited. And waited. After I got tired of waiting, I called another teacher and asked if I had missed the bus.
"You haven't heard? School's cancelled. It's a Typhoon Day!" he declared.

Awesome. I walked back to my apartment thankful that cable and internet had been installed only the day before. So here I sit, on the internet, flicking between Oprah and the Nat Geo channel. It is raining. It is windy. Is it really a Typhoon?

Yes. It is a tropical storm called Lionrock and is centred on the southern part of Taiwan. It is dark and cloudy and the skies are not expected to clear until tomorrow, Thursday.

Stranded inside my apartment, I will brave the storm, with cable and internet in tow.