I came home last night to a note taped to the door saying our back faucet was leaking. I woke up this morning to the same note taped to my alarm clock. "Leaking" was crossed out, and "spraying" was penciled in. Clueless on how to call a plumber, I asked the lady downstairs, who happens to own several apartments. I held up my electronic dictionary, which displayed the characters for "plumber". Her and her husband both looked at it blankly. "What do you want," she asked. I said a man to fix the pipes. "Oooh", she said, "It will be very expensive." But she made the call, and, within the hour, the guy arrived on his motorcycle. Everyone takes their shoes off at the door here, and this includes service people. So he took his shoes off, heads to the back door, puts them back on, and goes outside. He looks, then says something in Chinese, which I guess was "I gotta go buy a part", because he left.

When he returned, we had to go to the rooftop apartment where the shutoff valves are conveniently located. Good thing the neighbor was home. Several trips back and forth through their apartment, and eventually the new pipe held. The guy was here for over an hour. I still remember him walking through our apartment with his shoes in hand, taking the utmost care they wouldn't drip on the floor. Alternately, I recall once a plumber standing in my apartment in the United States, holding the snake he was just using, and watching it drip onto my carpet.

Megan and I were going through our money. I was envisioning running out to the bank machine to get more. But we had a few thousand NT$, maybe US$175, so I figured we'd be okay.

The bill was US$15.

Wednesday afternoon, and I keep waiting for the other side of the storm to come, but so far there's nothing. The eye passed over us around 11:00 AM or so, and later Megan and I ventured out to take a look. Foolishly, I forgot to bring my camera. We ended up going back so I could get it from the apartment. I shot a few pictures, then discovered my battery was dead. How annoying. So, anyways, you can have a look at the few pictures I took before the battery went dead. Just click here.

Ok, a little strange here - I woke up, heard, as usual, the wind whipping, and realized it was in dreams only that I saw my neighbor's building lay open like a sardine can. Foggy, but awake now, I got up and opened the bedroom door, but it pushed in on me as I turned the knob, and I felt a rush of wind into the room. The back bathroom window was open, and the air in the apartment was adjusting to the change in air pressure when I opened a room. Last night that window let air in away from the force of the wind, but the storm moves clockwise - now it is the back of the building that is being buffetted. Our back porch windows are covered in a fine spray of water, and it's difficult to see out there. Yet objects are okay on the porch - a large plastic recycling bin still sits where we left it, a garden hose atop the dryer (people keep their washers and dryers on their porches here).

We are in the second radius on the Navy's graphic. That means we are experiencing 50 knot winds, about 58 miles per hour. So imagine standing on the roof of someone's car as they are driving 58 mph down the highway, and that's what it feels like to walk down the street here. It is hard to tell where we are in terms of approaching the eye of the storm, but according to the satellite image, it appears to be getting close. But as it gets close we will enter the innermost radius where the winds are 80 knots, or 92 miles per hour.

But at least it's light out, and we can see what is going on - it makes a difference in terms of comfort level. Seems a bit quieter on the back porch - I'm going out for a look, and will check back later.

OK, still here, although now it's dark out, and the wind is howling pretty good. I watch the reflections of the ceiling light flex back and forth on the surface of our glass sliding doors. The doors go not to the outside, but merely to the balcony, where there is another set of windows.

The bedroom windows were getting hit pretty hard, looking as if someone was spraying a firehose against the glass, the view outside reduced to an Impressionist painting. Two buckets on the window sill catch the rapidly dripping water. Our windows extend out from the face of the building, and above the windows is a curved, hard brittle plastic "awning". The rain rattles down pretty hard on that and it's really loud. For that alone we may sleep in the back bedroom tonight.

We just taped the windows - better safe than sorry! I saw them flex a bit, so I thought it'd be prudent. It's howling out there! OK, I better get dinner started before the power goes out! Good thing we have a gas stove!

Typhoon Aere is edging towards Taiwan. This could possibly be our first real typhoon. We've had threats, even a few typhoon days, but this one doesn't appear to be veering from its track. Already the large tree whose uppermost branches used to sway in front of our 4th floor window has blown down, lifting the adjacent wooden deck at a crazy tilt, spilling potted plants everywhere.

Much to Megan's concern, I drove my red Vespa up to school. TAS is on a bit higher ground, and they have a very large, dry underground parking garage protected by a rolling metal door on the outside so I doubt any serious water gets in there. The ride up Chung Shan Bei Lu was dicey, with pretty strong gusts of wind coming in from the cross streets. Yet I wasn't the only one out there. There were a few other scooters, and a fair amount of cars. Most of the businesses were closed, the metal gates down on them.

After I safely stored my scooter I figured I'd see if Shi Dong Market was open. Was it ever! This is the wet market near school, where I do most of my food shopping. I have never seen it so busy. People were stocking up on all sorts of food, but it was a much more convivial atmosphere than in the States, when people are buckling down for a snowstorm. Vendors working as fast as they could, filling bags with produce, fish mongers hawking their stuff. The place was hopping. I left some of my bags by the front door to the market, along with my plastic poncho, confident no one would bother my stuff - they didn't.

Walking home, arms full, the thin yellow poncho kept me fairly dry. I bought it for about a buck - a disposable, shin-length, very thin yellow plastic poncho. I discovered the benefit of its transparency, as I could see even with the hood blown against my face. Couldn't neccessarily breathe, but I was able to see.

So, here we are holed up, plenty of food, could use some white wine for the clams, basil, and fettucine I was going to cook for tonight. The brunt of the storm should start to hit us in about fifteen hours. Should be rather interesting. I'll keep you posted.

A Saturday night and we are back in Taipei. We have been away since June 9th, and something was so very familiar about coming back this time. We are still experiencing "firsts" - first walk up Chung Shan Bei Lou, first time back in the building (Megan doesn't walk up to the 4th floor with me anymore! - over to 2nd!). All is so very familiar, like slipping on an old, comfortable pair of shoes.

We awoke early this morning, and decided to scooter up the mountain for a hike. We were up there by 7:30 AM, seeing all the early morning folk. We parked the Vespa at the head of the trail for Chi Shing Mountain. We were hardly off the scooter when we heard magical singing, something ethereal and moving. A chorus of female voices contraposed by a heavy male voice. We both looked at each other and wanted to see the source. We walked up a trail expecting to come upon some Buddhists praying, but instead it was four women and a man, singing for the sheer pleasure of it, and doing nothing but laughing between songs. They sounded like angels.

We hiked up the mountain trail, immediately becoming warm in the overcast environment. The wind blew strong, but we didn't feel it as we climbed the stone steps clinging to the side of the mountain. We passed people on their way down (was it even 8:00 AM yet??) and they greeted us with "zao's" and "good morning's". At the top we sat upstairs in the pagoda and faced the wind. We closed our eyes and clouds brushed across our faces. We smelled the sky. We ate milk crackers and drank cool water. We had a mealy asian apple. But it was all fine, a beautiful beginning to a Saturday morning. Back down in Taipei there were classrooms waiting to be unpacked, but we sat instead among the metallic-sounding insects who took haven in the trees. Why be anywhere else? We were there absorbing it all, looking out at an Italianate landscape. We were leagues away from America, and it felt fresh and exciting. But how do you explain?

We descended, and I stopped in at the hot springs for a quick soak. Brief as it was, it felt foreign and fun to sit among old Chinese men soaking and talking in the rusty-smelling water. My bandanna was my towel. All in all, an experience not to be had in the States.

So we remain torn still, more or less thinking we might go home, yet probably forever with doubts. How do you make a decision like this? I wait for whispers from someone, anyone....