Crunchy,
I’m also relatively new to the whole typhoon thing. Somehow I seem to have forgotten any I experienced before or somehow managed to not be in the same area at their time of coming.
I’m from the NW and we get lots of rain there. There are tons of things, fun and not so fun, to do inside. I brought Scrabble with me from home, and if you’re into it there’s always Mah Jung with your local friends. Or you could indulge in lots of make-up sleep!
so what happened? is it getting here tonight, or did it already pass?
Well, from the looks of your icon, your ankles have been overly taxed a bit much lately, innit?
Hope you feel better, by the way. 
Flipper, should arrive at sometime after 11 tonight.
Nice day with the family. A bit of wind but not too bad. This is my 4-5 typhoon here and I still feel that this typhoon thing is more hype than anything else.
That’s the thing about typhoons, they tend to do more damage when you least expect it.
We had one storm back home about 10 years ago that we thought would be a “banana storm”… knock down a few banana trees, no need to for people to tie everything down. Most people didn’t even think twice about it, but there was something about the air pressure that caused hundreds of glass windows to shatter. For MONTHS, there was a shortage of glass (and manpower) on the island to repair all these windows so people had boards covering their windows.
Which reminds me of my most dramatic typhoon story (same one). We’d gathered at my aunt’s house for the storm, so we could play games and keep eachother company. Both levels had huge picture windows and I was standing in front of one with my 1 year old in my arms, watching everything get whipped around outside.
When I got tired of looking out the window I walked away, and just as I reached the opposite side of the room, three 7-foot windows blew in, glass flying everywhere. Then my uncle came down the stairs to see what was going on, and just as he got to the landing, the two upstairs windows blew in, glass flying over his head.
Surprisingly, no one was hurt, not a single cut from all that glass (no kidding), and it was also weird how all twelve of us moved toward the same part of the house right before the windows blew in. We spent the rest of the night huddled in a downstairs bedroom until the wind died down and the men could go outside and board up the window openings.
Jennifer
All right, they downplayed Nari and it turned out to be a killer.
We had a storm in Denmark in December 1999, which laid down several christmas trees, killed a few people and left a lot of people without powr for some time.
Now, here is the funny (?) think about that storm. Danes like to go to christmas lunches (dinners) and as the storm hit on a Friday evening everybody went out to celebrate christmas. The police advised strongly prople to stay at home… no chance. People didn’t give a damn, but some of us learned a lesson. I was a guiding chinese tourists at the time and when I walked home I saw a man get hit by a piece of roof tile. (All roofs in central Copenhagen are tiled) Lots of blood. Poor guy.
Copenhagen was hit bu a milder storm a week later. The city centre was deserted.
“Holger went a guiding Chinese tourists. Uh huh. Uh huh.”
My friend looked this up a while ago; its not specifically illegal for a company to demand an employee come during a typhoon holiday, which in Taiwan means its legal (and happens).
On the other hand, I’ve heard about companies complaining they had to pay employees that worked on Friday double salary. So maybe they can demand people to come in, but have to pay double…? Anybody else know?