Typhoon, continued (first part here).

Upstairs again with sesame noodles in hand, I resumed sitting on the bed frame, watching Mr. Song clean out the desk drawers. I told him I didn't think I would have a chance to go get a mattress that evening.

No problem! he said, and went to the next room, coming back with a big red blanket. He draped the blanket over the bed frame.

You can sleep on this tonight, he said. Though I'm afraid it might be too hard for you.

Not at all, I said. It's perfect. Then the power went out.

I spent the night turning over on the red blanket-draped bed frame, listening to the loose window above me clatter with every gust of wind, blearily wondering if the next gust would be strong enough to dislodge it from the frame and drop it on my head.

In the middle of the night I woke up to silence. I went out to the balcony, and the debris-filled streets were dark and quiet. The trees still looked a bit bent, like they were unsure whether it was safe to stand up straight again. I went back to the room, propping my hip bone under my travel neck pillow and going into another dreamless half-sleep.

Around 8am the clattering window woke me up again. Outside the rain had stopped but the wind was howling. I opened the door to find Mr. Song pacing the hall, carrying things from one room to another. He'd spent the night in the next room with all the stuff he'd cleared out from mine the day before, and now he was moving it to the foyer.

A guest was coming to look at the other room that afternoon, so he would be staying here today to wait for them, he said. I spent the next hour unpacking my things and scrubbing the walls.

By 9 o'clock the wind had almost disappeared again. Mr. Song knocked on my door, asking if I wanted to go find breakfast. Thinking of my leftover sesame noodles in the fridge, I told him I was interested.

Downstairs at the bottom of the stairwell under the concrete stairs were three bikes. We propped the door open and I helped him move the first one outside.

This one is a lady bike, he said. It doesn't work, but we keep it here.

We took the two remaining bikes outside, and put the lady bike back in its place.

As we rode down the back streets behind the building, Mr. Song introduced me to the neighborhood.

This was a great place to raise kids, he said. Our son went to that elementary school. This breakfast place has been here for 30 years. Western style, Chinese style, they can make everything, he said, pointing to another closed garage door.

We went down a ramp toward the river, and found our tires submerged in mud and silt. At this point breaking would have meant falling over, or at least getting mud all over our shoes, so we kept pedaling precariously forward.

This path goes all along the river for miles, Mr. Song said, sweeping his arm over what looked like a dried up creek bed. I always ride here in the evening. We turned and rode along this creek bed, passing overturned signs, uprooted shrubs, and displaced concrete barriers. Every now and then the actual paved path showed itself from under the sand.

A few other people were walking down the path, mostly going in the opposite direction. We passed a teenager standing forlornly on a motionless skateboard, wheels sunk halfway into the mud. Some older people were wading in a ditch with nets, scooping up large fish. I asked Mr. Song what they were doing.

They're catching those fish as pets, he replied. You can't buy this kind of fish at the pet store.

The path was also littered with the carcasses of many more of these same fish, which looked a little like carp. Under the bridge, some elder ladies had gathered a lot of them into a pile.

We rode along with the river on one side, and a huge concrete wall on the other, with regular staircases leading up and over it to the city. Each staircase was blocked halfway up by a snarl of tree branches and shrubbery.

There's a gate up ahead that goes back to the road, Mr. Song said.

When we got to the gate, the sturdy metal door was shut.

It's OK, there's another one farther up, he said.

The next gate was closed too. I started to wonder why we hadn't seen any other bicyclists on the path yet. We rode for a while in silence, passing more and more dead fish lying pristinely on the pavement. Had the flies all been blown away by the storm?

I wasn't planning on biking this far, Mr. Song said finally.

We kept moving forward, and then we came to a bend in the river where the path sloped upward and eventually led over the wall and back to the street.

To be continued...

The path by the river during evening (a week after the typhoon)

The wall on the river side

 Mobile theater and temple on the opposite side of the wall from the river

Squid stew (猶豫羹) 

Vegetable dumplings with sides of seaweed and dried tofu with tiny crispy fish

I've been lucky so far. After the first week's twin earthquakes, last week I got to experience a typhoon, which some people in other parts of the world refer to as a hurricane. I came back early from Yilan this past Monday morning because the afternoon buses and trains were canceled in anticipation of the storm. The Yilan bus terminal was jammed with other tourists, and extra emergency buses were leaving for Taipei every five minutes.

This was my move-in day for my new apartment. Mr. Song, the landlord, had come down from Taoyuan early to meet me when I told him I was getting back in the afternoon. By the time I got there, it was dumping rain and the wind was making umbrellas more of a liability than a help. I ran under the eaves to ring the buzzer, and a few minutes later Mr. Song came down and let me in. I followed him up four flights of narrow, slippery stairs to an apartment flat that had been separated into three or four studios.

My room was still littered with empty beer cans, yogurt cups, and newspaper. Mr. Song had been expecting to have enough time to clean up that afternoon before I arrived, he said. He refused my help, so I sat for a few minutes watching him gather the litter into plastic bags while he talked. He spoke too quickly for me to readily follow, and after a while he switched to English, possibly tired of repeating himself.

Outside the wind was getting more aggressive. It would mellow down for a bit, and then suddenly attack with a loud whoop, shaking the building and rattling the windows. A sound like a metal door slamming irregularly boomed from somewhere downstairs.

Mr. Song said this was the worst typhoon he'd seen in years, and it would get even worse around nightfall. It was only about 4pm, but the sky was already getting dark. Outside the window, trees were bent over sideways and large objects were flying through the air.

That was about when I realized I didn't have any food with me. I told this to Mr. Song. Don't go outside, he said. If something falls on you, you will die.

I went out and stood under the eaves, watching the wind make long blurry shapes with the rain. When it died down, I ran to the sidewalk and turned right toward a row of shops, stepping over large pieces of roofing material and tree branches. Everything was closed, corrugated garage doors pulled shut. I kept walking down the street, ducking under cover whenever the wind picked up strength.

Eventually I came to a restaurant that was still open. There were no customers inside, just two employees sitting behind the counter, probably stranded. I got two boxes of sesame noodles and some sour plum juice and turned back.

To be continued...

Police responding to a broken roof, while the storm picks up strength 

Mr. Song riding past stranded fish on the road the next morning by the river

By the river after the storm 

Things knocked over by the storm 

A local independent beer

Spirit animals 

Buns cat 

Grandma Millie's handmade cookies

Cherry Grandfather