Typhoon Nock-Ten   2004-10-25

Typhoon Nock-Ten (a Laotian word for bird), which has been brewing off the east coast for the past few days, hit northeastern Taiwan with a vengance late last night. We fell asleep to the sound of the wind giving the neon signs outside our windows a good lashing. They were whining and groaning as they struggled to stay attached to the wall by their dodgy, electrical cable moorings. Nock-Ten must have intensified during the night because we were woken up this morning by absolutely furious rain pelting our windows. That, and the vicious wind rattling our single pane windows.

There's almost no better feeling than waking up to the sound of a typhoon raging outside when you're warm and dry in bed. First and foremost it means a day off work! The whole city, minus the hundreds of 7-11's, shuts down until the typhoon blows over. The metal shutters covering the plate glass windows on all the store fronts come clanking down. All the public and private schools close down. Businesses give employees the day off. The streets are deserted.

It's great, as long as you don't live in an area prone to flooding. Nock-Ten is expected to dump as much as a meter of rain in a 24 hour period. Of course, the sewers in some places in Taipei county can't accommodate that kind of excess so whole streets and districts will be completely flooded out for at least a week. Luckily for us we're in no danger of anything like that happening where we live.

I'm not sure what we'll do today. It might be a day spent drinking coffee and laying on the bed reading Cervantes. If the wind dies down we'll head out and wander the emptry streets a little later. Not a bad way to spend a day.

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