No School, No work :)

No School, No work :)

There was no school or work today for anyone in Taipei :). There is also no school or work for anyone tomorrow too~!! This does not mean the city is shutdown, as several places I went to today were open, including the giant supermakret chains (Carrefour, french Loblaws/Costco/Dominon knockoff). Due to the typhoon(s) (two actually) that hit Taipei yesterday night, and continuing today and tomorrow its basically a holiday for everyone! :D :D :D

I don't know what the big deal is, the weather is still very warm (mid 30s), sure its windy and raining, but would you want it to be mid 30s and not have any rain or windy to keep you cool? In Toronto we would have -20 weather, severe snow storms and still everyone would have to go to work, and clean the snow off our cars. The rain here just flows into the gutters and doesnt leave the hassle snow and ice does. It was quite windy today, half of my umbrella was bent from the force of the winds. I wonder what would happen if it snowed even once as it does in Toronto here, it would probably shut down the city for years. I was told that last year the subway was shut down for almost a year due to the flooding that occurred from one particularly bad typhoon, entire cars were submerged in water, and the streets were 5 feet deep in rain water. I stayed in-doors for most of the day, and indoors you really cant tell the city is shut down, as the storm is surprisingly quite quiet, there is no thunder or lightning that one would expect of a severely bad rain storm, although its not raining at the moment too badly, although at times it can come down in large heavy sheets. When the windy is really strong, the rain never actually hits the ground, but just gets swept back into the sky, which is pretty neat. I am sure Vancouver gets rain quite often too, but they don't seem to gripe about it as much. I'm not complaining though, a holiday is a holiday :).

With August almost over, hopefully so will be the sweltering heat that has griped Taipei for the last 2 months. In other news, recently I used these weird electronic toilets that spray water to wash your butt while you use them, and the seat is also heated. That was an interesting experience.... but frankly I prefer the N. American style ones over these ones as well. I;m really staring to miss things I took for granted in Canada, like large parks and forrests, clean fresh air, big houses, good pizza and deodorant sticks. Yes, the Chinese deodorant sticks suck, the really dont do a good job, and unfortuantely they dont sell the American brands like Old Spice High Endurance Fresh Scent :( so naturally, if you are planning on coming to Taipei, don't forget to bring some for me :P

Thick crust pizza with extra tomato sauce from Pizza Pizza would also be greatly appreciated if you can fit it on the plane :) Being on a chinese diet. I don't eat much cheese anymore, my friends tell me Chinese people don't like cheese, how it tastes and smells, similar to how N. Americans don't like how Stinky Tofu smells and tastes. Which I find odd considering how many different types of cheeses there are out there, but there maybe some truth to this as I rarely see any cheese here in any of the foods, granted most stores sell Congee, steamed dumplings, Fried meat or vegetables, rice or noodles, food that generally does not have cheese served with it. There are McDonalds, KFC and Burger Kings here, but like their Canadian equivalents, I never patronize these places.

In order to keep my english skills intact, I am going to try to find some libraries or bookstores that carry english titles, although that has previously proved to be quite challenging. I will report later how successful I am at this endevour.