Typhoon Gaemi

 

According to Tintin, it wouldn’t be a proper adventure without a typhoon, and Typhoon Gaemi is here in Taipei. It’s supposed to be a big one, actually a super one, and Taipei closed up shop officially (work and classes) on Wednesday and Thursday. Most things were closed, but the stalwarts remained strong: 7-Elevens, the garbage trucks, a couple of street food carts, BBT, karaoke studios. Here in Taipei, the garbage trucks swing by five evenings a week, playing a little tinny jingle, and then everyone goes down with their garbage bags and throws them into the back of the truck.* They collect garbage even in typhoons.

 

The few locals or native Taiwanese I know have been messaging and telling me to be careful, and I’m …being careful—but I’m not exactly sure of what. Is it one of those cultural things where Chinese people ask if you’ve eaten? Someone told me to be careful and then suggested some indoor malls that might be open if we got itchy. We stocked up on instant noodles and mangoes. I have been watching the news of Typhoon Gaemi, its residual path in the Philippines with flooding, the wind and rain in southern Taiwan, which looks awful, but here in Taipei, our small clan has been weathering it all peacefully, and grateful for it.

 

On Wednesday, earlier in the day before the typhoon was set to arrive, we headed out to our nearest Starbucks and had a few treats. You can count on Starbucks to remain open through a typhoon.

 

It hadn’t yet started raining in earnest, or at least it was raining on-and-off like normal Taipei rain, which is to say break out your umbrella, and not like hurricane rain which is I imagine to be more like mopeds and uprooted trees flying into the air. It was relatively quiet on the streets, but still lots of people on foot.

 

 

The typhoon was supposed to arrive Wednesday evening, so we hunkered down on Wednesday afternoon and played card games and made indoor chaos on Thursday morning, but by Thursday afternoon, Stephen King was calling out to me, so I sent Caleb down into the super typhoon to see how rainy it was on the street. Hold onto the door if you feel the wind picking you up! Would my dove return to me? We waited anxiously from the safety of our dry apartment.

 

Upon discovering the rain to have mostly stopped, we all went down for a little walk to the 7-Eleven to pick up some snacks and then to pick up some BBT. What are we doing with our lives? Who knows.

 

We don’t have a stroller cover for the stroller. I actually bought one before we left and then, in Canada, I brought it somewhere so I could test it on the stroller, and then just never tested it. Now I have no idea where it is, but it’s definitely not in Taiwan. So instead we used a garbage bag to cover Junia’s legs, and the hood covers her shoulders and up, and then from her chest to her stomach she is wet, so sort of like a dry-wet-dry sandwich. The rain is comprehensive here in Taiwan, typhoon or otherwise, and it likes to move sideways.

 

 

*Actually, what would I know, since it’s Caleb who runs down with our garbage bags and throws them into the truck. Caleb has been trained like a Pavlovian dog, and when he hears that Moonlight Sonata, I can see his ears perking up, a small glint of both panic and third-floor challenge, and he sprints for the door, swinging up a garbage bag on the way. He hasn’t missed it yet. I do tie the garbage bag for him—it’s the least I could do, and also I feel like (reminiscent of watching him take his cello down the fire escape) the clang banging on the way down is just asking for a burst open bag of garbage.