Typhoon Day Holiday Today

Ah the feeling of waking up at 11am on a Monday morning... ZZZ...

Stuck indoors again - typhoon no. 4

Typhoon Jangmi approaches -4th typhoon to hit us this year and also the strongest storm. It made landfall in Yilan, where the Central Mountain Range buffet the biggest impact.

We've had typhoons hit us every weekend in succession. The land's still pretty waterlogged in the mountainous areas and low lying areas. Lots of landslides plus shaky bridges are still unfixed - a bridge in Taichung collapsed during last week's typhoon, rescue workers are still trawling for the bodies of the 4 missing people. May God have mercy on their souls and their bodies be recovered quickly so that loved ones have closure. This time around, the authorities are more conservative and took better preparations. Thus far, things are better.

Jangmi typhoon kicked up winds up to 250km hit northern Taiwan, Hurricane Ike which caused so much devastation in Texas was only up to 233km/h. In Hualien, a tour bus flipped over on its side - just shows how bad the wind was - fortunately no deaths.

Before the typhoon hit, yesterday, I was in Fulong 福隆 yesterday (Sat) with Rae, Alex and Pingfan for some cycling off the North-East coast of Taiwan. A newly restored old train tunnel - the Caoling Tunnel is also the basis of an old Taiwanese folk song. In fact Rae sang almost the entire song as we cycled through it. It's about 4.6km and then we went back to Fulong for the famed Fulong biantang 便當.

Then we cycled in the opposite direction intending to cross a nice drawbridge. But we missed a turn and gave up after the scenary turned industrial. Plus it got dangerous when the traffic around us were mostly semi-trailers.

I was a little wobbly initially - having not cycled in a while. Rae cycled behind me, yelling warnings at me every so often - 小心！Disclaimer - I was preoccupied with the scenary and wasn't watching the front too often. In fact at 1 stage, I got too close to Pingfan and our tires met briefly. All she yelled was, 请不要碰我！The Taiwanese sense of humour is really subtle. Kills me everytime.

Emotions, feelings... groan!

All this Aunt Agony moments I keep having is starting to grate on me. It's either that the girls in the office are younger with an active social life or that I'm just in the office a lot/online so much that I get dumped with these moments.

Looking back, I realise that I've endured that a lot - my whole life in fact, I've spent many hours sitting around and being that listening ear.

The thing is, it doesn't make me feel good - if anything, it reminds me how much I lack in terms of BGR (boy-girl relationships). I only had 1 serious relationship with Hon - and he left me in the end. And late at nights, alone, all these come back to me in the form of inadequacy - how lonely I am and how much I want to have my own family - husband and kids.

Maybe this is mid-life crisis and singlehood for too long - all rolled up into 1 messy me.

Gah! Does the good Lord hear prayers anymore?!

Oh and I finally got around to parking the Snow Mountain trip pictures. Due to typhoon, we weren't granted a permit to climb the Eastern Peak which was the plan. But since we were already there, it became a camping trip. The views of the Snow Mountain area are really spectacular, a pity we didn't make the summit.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8062670@N07/sets/72157607431238395/

Divorce and reality

Recently 2 friends got divorced. Both of whom are great, really nice people married to seemingly nice decent men. What's happening today?

While the Church's stand is pretty clear, the rising number of annulment it grants is also a telling story. http://www.catholicinsight.com/online/church/divorce/c_annul.shtml

To those going through/midst of divorce, may the good Lord stand by you, strengthen and be with you.

My Assimilation is Complete

Found myself downloading Jay Chou music on a Sat morning... I hereby pronounce myself truly assimilated to life in Taiwan.

Ignore the fact that just 2 days ago in China, the factory guys thought I was some ABC (American born Chinese).. Boo! They all came up to me speaking really stilted English cos someone told them that I don't speak Chinese. I'll kill whoever that's spreading such vicious rumours...

It was supposed to be a fun island weekend on Orchid Island. But as it turns out, Typhoon Sinlaku has other ideas.

Let's just say, there were some pretty long faces in the office yesterday. Those of us "supposed" to be lying on the beaches of Orchid Island.

And I have no clue what to do this really wet and windy weekend... lie in bed somemore or hit the gym..

PS I bought a bag for mom in Shanghai - and thanks Steph, but I made it safely out without any dramatics.

Citibank - my credit card of choice (again)

Thank you Mr Pradeep Pant - VP of Credit Cards Taiwan and his assistant Sophia.

My faith in Citibank Taiwan is reinstated.

Pick me up Tuesday

It's a Tuesday night and Emily wanted to order pizza and work late today again - I refused! Managed to convince her to go out eat, then return to work. We went to eat 小籠包 near Guting MRT station. And feeling poor after buying some hiking gear (we're going to Jade Mountain in Oct! I bought a new Lafuma jacket and she hiking boots), we walked to take the MRT instead of our usual taxi after dinner. Plus we overate - ok ok, that's the real reason. We were too stuffed and needed to walk off our bloated bellies.

She pointed down 1 dark dank lane and said, hey massage place. Now those 2 words are magic to me, so I walked down with her. She is right, the lane was pretty interesting. It has an antique shop, very traditional provisions shop (with all the 7-11s and 24hr convenience stores in Taiwan, it survived!), some quaint old buildings. While walking back out to the main street, we saw this interesting shop. I thought it was Japanese curios, Emily though jewellery, it was a very high class Japanese styled desserts. All hand sculptured. You have to see to believe how pretty they are. Fillings range from redbean to green bean to some jelly. We ate 1, the yellow bird. It tasted really good! The owner came out to chat, she spent 2 years in Japan learning the craft. And it takes up to 15mins to make a single complicated one. Makes for good gifts. Might buy some for Michelle when I next go home. The store is called Tang Ho 唐和.

Sunday - Fitness 0, Culture 2

The excesses of the week caught up with me. Basketball with Paula (from the office) til late on Friday and some really hard routes at the Wanhua rock gym Sat morning plus the preparation run sessions I had all week over lunch -> it all took it's toil on me. I forget sometimes that my body is aging faster than my mind. Or is it the other way around... hmm...

In any case, I overslept my Nike Run on Sunday morning. I was all prepared! I was eager, I was excited, I was tired. I woke up with a start and it was 6.14am. Grr! And the weather was beautiful! And it was a new route - a 10km run! And the president of Taiwan ran too!

So when I met Ghee Hwee for church and lunch at 10-ish, I was super grumpy. Pissed at myself. Dumped on her and felt much better by end of Sunday. Poor Ghee Hwee...

Complained to her thru lunch and by the time the ballet started, I felt much better. :)

Oh yeah, we caught a ballet. The Russian Ballet was in town, we caught the Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky. It was simply fantastic. I yelled bravo at the end of the performance, much to Ghee Hwee's consternation - she hissed 'this is a classy place!' at me.

We walked around the area afterwards and realised the Woolly Mammoth exhibits were on display at the Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall (just behind the National Theatre where the ballet performance was). It was ok, just a bunch of tasks and fur and lots of teeth. I guess a lot's lost in translation - it was almost 100% in Chinese.

Fitness 0 (for missing the 10k run)
Culture 2

Not a bad weekend.