Random Picture of the Week #19

Fake cat, real bird. In front of a shop off of Yongkang St.

BIG NEWS!!!

As many of you now know, Allister and I have decided to get married! Yay!!!

We've been together for three years, through three countries, and have been making plans for the future, so it was the logical next step.

Since our family is spread out all over the world, and it's not easy for everyone to travel, we will do a civil service here in Taiwan sometime next year, maybe in March. We hope everyone understands. We'll give you more details as we make plans.

We're very excited and happy! Thank you everyone for your well wishes!

Us, in Rotorua, NZ

Typhoon news...

First off, as I'm sure have you seen on your news, Taiwan has suffered much more from typhoon Morakot than it was initially thought. A week later the whereabouts of many still haven't been confirmed and there are thousands still stranded. The official death toll due to the horrendous mudslides in southern Taiwan may exceed 500 as entire villages were swept away by rivers of mud. It's difficult to comprehend the devastation. Now, the government is under fire for not responding fast enough and for initally rejecting offers of help from abroad. I hope that those missing are found alive.

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• Typhoon survivor: Our house was like a boat (cnn.com)
• Taiwan president apologizes as families mourn (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Across Ravine, Typhoon Survivors Wait (nytimes.com)
• A Week After Typhoon, Taiwan Rescues Continue (time.com)
• Many images of typhoon's desolation from Taiwan (robertg69.wordpress.com)

Random Picture of the Week #18

Xinyi and Donghua Roads, Taipei 101 Building in the background.

Typhoon Morakot Continued....

Well, Taipei missed the really strong winds and heavy rainfall, but the rest of the country wasn't so lucky. We'll have more rains for the next two days or so, but nothing crazy. In the meantime southern Taiwan is starting the cleanup and recovery from landslides, collapsed bridges and overflown riverbanks. Several areas in southern Taiwan had record breaking rainfalls this weekend, with more than 55 inches in one day and more than 98 inches so far, and it isn't over yet.

I've been keeping up on the news on eTaiwan News website.

Luckily, Taiwan was well prepared for the typhoon so casualties have been relatively low.

Scary stuff!

Our First Typhoon...

... has so far been uneventful. But really, from the images we've been seeing from the rest of the island, we're really grateful to not be experiencing it.

Thursday at work everyone was getting excited about the first big typhoon of the season heading straight for the island. Taiwan gets hit with a dozen or more typhoons a year, usually starting in late May, but this year the season started late (as did the monsoon season in greater south Asia). Thursday night CNN was predicting a category 4 on a 5 point scale and even mentioned the word "super typhoon" a few times which had us a little freaked out.

We followed the direction of our coworkers and stocked up on water, food, and batteries for the flashlight, then preceded to make ourselves comfortable in our tiny one bedroom abode.

We woke up Friday morning to a definite storm outside but were surprised when early afternoon it lightened up to almost nothing--- Pizza Hut was even delivering pizzas! CNN still focused on the Philippines and southern Taiwan which was really getting battered and we had a hard time finding out what to expect here in Taipei. At this point the storm was downgraded to a category 2.

Finally, we found a good website for seeing the satellite images like the one below and it turns out we're in the eye of the storm, so more's still to come.



Now its early Saturday evening and the day was drizzly with no high winds that we can see. Restaurants were open and schools were closed. Everyone's acting like its all over yet if you look at the satellite images it seems more is still to come. I don't know how this all works. Of course, better safe than sorry, so we're staying in. :-)