Taipei: surviving Typhoon Sinlaku

My excitement in coming to Korea was increased by the prospect of popping across to other parts of Asia while my geographical position was favourable. Luckily other people shared this peripateticism and on Saturday morning four of us jetted out to Taiwan. Lovely, subtropical Taiwan, I thought prior to leaving, with its palm tree-lined streets and average September temperature of 31C. Upon boarding the plane we were informed that we may experience some turbulence on landing owing to the massive typhoon that was battering north-eastern Taiwan. Great.

After a surprisingly smooth landing (our pilot was called Peter Parker, that would be why) we disembarked and saw the Taiwanese palm trees, only they were blown horizontal in force twelve winds as raindrops twice the size of ordinary precipitation battered the windows. Nothing was open on the Saturday afternoon we arrived. The first hotel we arrived at had slightly over the top storm defences covering their glass entrance, and it took a while to find somewhere to eat, at last deciding on something familiar from Korea: Shabu Shabu. I got through three umbrellas in three days, wetter than I've ever been in clothes, and at times, thoroughly pissed off. Got a bit of a cold too, though it could've been worse. Google "Typhoon Sinlaku video". Yeah not far away from the capital, bridges were collapsing, a hotel was floating away and there were quite a few fatalities. Like I say, I'll take the cold.

Tuesday saw the sun come out and it was quite nice, though we were on the bus to the airport just after lunch. Conclusion? I'm not going back. The thing I was most looking forward to was visiting the world's tallest completed building, the Taipei 101. Guess how many floors it has. The observation floor (also the highest anywhere) was on the 89th floor, but the poor visibility made it a let down. The view was not good when we arrived and only deteriorated until it felt like we were in some sort of milk aquarium. A trip in the world's fastest lift was fun though. Eighty-nine floors in 37 seconds. It takes about the same length of time to ascend seven floors in our school building. To end on a positive note, the Taiwanese people are very nice, and interestingly speak better English than the majority of Koreans in the service industry. It was a novelty for me to have a conversation with the waitress or the bar staff!

Something struck me when I returned to my apartment too: it was nice to be home. Yeah, home. This is very much my home now - for the next nine and a half months or so anyway. I feel very comfortable, very at ease in my surroundings. It's good.

Our next holiday will be the very carefully nomenclatured Japan-demonium on Christmas eve. The countdown begins.

Rain

It's wet season. I have seen some sun since I've been here, and always when I'm in a classroom, but the sky has generally been monotonously grey and ominous. What's mildly irritating is that it's rained both days of all three weekends since I've been here, so whenever I've been out looking at/for stuff, I come back clammy and unfulfilled. Can't say I've seen Seoul in the best light yet. Literally.

This was the demoralising view from my window on Saturday morning:


Today, I boarded the subway intending to go one stop to Nowon, because I hadn't been there during the day and sober yet, and it's just on my doorstep. It was actually even a bit sunny when I left. Umbrellaless, on arriving at Nowon I saw the rain tipping down and stayed there on the nice dry train. So, plan B. Except I didn't have a plan B, so I kept sitting. I eventually ended up on the other side of the city at the World Cup stadium. This:


Plus, it worked: it wasn't raining here! Not much anyway.

Koreans really loved football for four weeks in 2002. It's still popular, but the interest has subequently waned, meaning there's little demand for a however-many-thousand-seater stadium. So they made it into another mall. I walked around it, thinking I might be able to have a look at the pitch or something, but unless I missed it, you can't. I did walk around the concourse surrounding the stadium, which was nice as it was only raining a bit, and for the first time pretty much ever in Seoul, I was all alone. Grey, wet solitude! Look!



The upshot of all this climactic inclemency is that I have a bastard cold. My health's not exactly been complimented by the lifestyle either though. Alongside eating lots of spicy food and junk and few vegetables, realising too late that I'd eaten month-out-of-date noodles was quite unpleasant. Couple this with the regular needless all night benders that I'm slowly getting used to here, means that I'm glad I brought all the drugs with me... Mmmm Strepsils.

Oww, negative talk. OK, it's mainly the weather that's causing this mild ire. Despite all that complaining I'm still enjoying it all. This could change: from Monday for a month the older kids are on school holidays. This means they still come to us in the afternoon, but also in the morning, so we all have several extra classes to teach every day. Overtime though. Think of all the lovely wons.

Lastly, spare a thought for all the people at Seoul mud festival this weekend. I can't decide if lots of rain is good or bad for a festival of mud.