Ellie goes to school, Mid-Autumn festival, and Super typhoon Meranti

First things first – It’s been 65 days since my last meal at Taco Bell. I’m still in the grieving process, but my gut seems to be thanking me. It is yet to be seen whether I stop aging and my hair grows back, but I’ll keep everyone in the loop. In the mean time we found a taco joint inside the night market that has sauce that tastes EXACTLY like taco bell….score!

On to other equally important things…Ellie has just completed her first month of Montessori school!

On good days she can’t stop talking about what she did, but on not so good days we feel bad that she may not understand what is going on. But everyone has been very friendly and it’s definitely getting better with time.

The school has this really nice coi pond out front and the kids get to feed the fish and turtles every day. Here is Ellie doing her thing:

It is only a 15 minutes walk from our apartment and normal hours for kids are 8am-6pm, which is remarkably long compared to US standards. Instead, we have opted to drop her at 9am and pick her up at 3:30 or 4:00 though because we don’t want her gone all day. They also provide lunch and a snack, all for $340/month plus some registration fees. The school is basically complete Chinese immersion for Ellie. A turning point came a few weeks ago when she discovered a boy that speaks English and Chinese. Apparently they are best buddies now and follow each other around everywhere. A few of the teachers speak Chinglish as well, which is helpful.

Last Thursday was Mid-Autumn festival, which was a national holiday. Since the holiday is based on the lunar calendar, there is always a full moon. It’s a time of barbecuing, moon cakes, lanterns, and spending time with family. The history of the holiday goes back to ancient folklore tales of the Chinese moon-goddess Chiang’e.

In honor of the festival, we got a 4 day weekend (Thursday – Friday), and interestingly enough the Saturday before was a normal work/school day including Ellie’s school, banks, and post offices in order to make-up the extra Friday we get off. I would have loved to show pictures of lanterns and other cool mid-autumn festival activities but we couldn’t enjoy any of it due to…

“Super typhoon” Meranti! (click for news coverage)

There is a Typhoon clause in our lease which basically says if you are negligent during a Typhoon and it causes damage to the property, you are responsible. I didn’t think anything of it because I wasn’t going to be leaving any windows or doors open. Unfortunately for us, the storm was so strong that water started seeping in from the windows!

Although the windows are typhoon grade, they still transfer air pressure inside the house to prevent the glass from shattering. So along with the air came water. I ran around soaking up water with towels while Ly frantically made lunch before a potential power outage. I made my rounds to all the windows and when I got back to the first window, I had to start the process all over again. Finally after about 2-3 hours it died down and everything was normal.

The storm was one of the most powerful in recent Taiwan history and caused widespread damage. The night market was pretty much flooded and branches were everywhere. Scooters were knocked over, signs fell, etc. Ly’s beloved plumeria tree in front of our apartment bit the dust. No more picking flowers on the way to school. 🙁

In addition, the city had a complete shutdown of water service for the first 24 hours due to run off contamination of the water supply from all the flooding. Luckily our building has water towers on the roof and we never saw a shut off in service. Ly and I filled up as many containers as we could as a precaution because she was scared we wouldn’t be able to flush the toilet….hahaha.

What was amazing however, was how fast this town bounced back. It was almost a non-issue and within 2 days I couldn’t see any branches or any evidence that there was a category 5 Typhoon that came through.

*UPDATE* Click here to see the one and only lady who was eating a pork bun sandwich while standing in the Typhoon. Despite her umbrella getting destroyed, she continued to eat that sandwich and is now a viral sensation. Thanks Sally Dao for this critical contribution.

When we’re cooped up in the house because of rain, we usually go somewhere for Ellie and Vera to let out their energy or find things to do inside. I’ll leave you with some pictures of them playing over the last few weeks.