To typhoon or not to tyhoon, that is the question...

There were predictions of not one, but TWO typhoons set to hit the island this week! At first they were saying Wednesday, then Thursday, and now it's Friday and there's not even a stiff breeze, at least where I am...

The media in every country tends to make a big deal about the "storm of the century" (Toronto people, remember "Snowmageddon"? Total bust) Anyways here we get typhoons and yes, they can cause a lot of damage as we've all seen on news reports, but in Taipei we're lucky and protected by the mountains, so it's much easier to get excited about typhoon days! (Think snow day but with no snow and more crazy winds and rain. But most importantly, no work!)

My friend Shaun and I decided to tempt fate and say that no, the typhoon(s) won't arrive on Wednesday, so let's go to the beach! He took the High Speed Rail into Taipei, then we grabbed another train to Fulong Beach. It's just over an hour away by express train, so by midday we were there and ready for some sun! The train costs $3.28 CAD per person and was rather comfortable.

Weeeeee! We're off to the beach!

Some more views from the train...

These are graves - usually set on some nice piece of real estate with a good view.

Since there was a typhoon in the vicinity, there were big waves farther out that surfers were taking advantage of, "swirls" which I think means undercurrent - as in be careful of swirls!! - and a lot of debris washed up on the beach. Fulong is normally a pretty clean beach (in my memory) but that day we found a razor blade, a syringe (minus the needle part), a diaper, and I'm sure there were plenty of other treasures. Luckily all the garbage was on the beach, and NOT in the water. The clouds were much cooler than I've ever seen before too! Joanne told me that the nice weather we had was the "calm before the storm" - perfect blue skies and hot sunny weather. My favourite!

Now it's two days later and it seems that the typhoons have missed us...or maybe will hit on the weekend, but I think they've swirled away to other places. A typhoon day would have been nice, because then I would have people to hang out with, but in good news it's given me a chance to update my blog!