Beginning of the Big Wind

It was raining when I woke up. I was a little disappointed because I knew I would be riding a moped later, and moped riding and rain didn't seem to go well together, especially since I had left my raingear at my apartment. Anyway, I had breakfast, and after Kuan got up we left. It wasn't raining that hard, so I think Kuan took the brunt of the rain, and he had a raincoat so it worked out well. For now.

It was kind of a long ride, and he ended up parking very close to Taipei 101, currently the tallest building in the world. I've never been very close to it, but the way it's built, it's kind of separated into about 10 sections. It looks like you would be able to climb it and each section could be a pitch. Except you probably couldn't protect it, and you'd certainly get deported.

Anyway, Kuan said the best option for a cell phone was to buy a prepaid card. It will cost to make calls, but not to recieve them. Getting set up was really quick and easy, but by the time we had finished it was raining harder, and it was about a thirty min ride to my apartment. There was really nothing we could do so we just went for it. At one point during the ride, rain was spashing into my eyes, so I closed them. This was poor decision because it made the side to side movement of the moped so much more pronounced. I opened my eyes again.

We made it safe and sound to my apartement, and Kuan told me all I needed to do was put the SIM card into my American cell phone, and then it would recieve calls from my new Taiwanese number. I was pretty sure my American cell phone didn't have a SIM card, but Kuan came up to make sure. He looked, and did not find, so he told me he'd help me buy a phone, but that he had to go to work just then.

I tidied up my room a bit and ate lunch. At 1:30, Jerry's mom picked me up and took me back to Jerry's work site. The work today was much more interesting. Jerry and the other guys he was working with had finished bolting the beams to the wall, and had attached metal bars, which stuck out perpindicular to the wall. Now we were bolting the fiberglass pieces of freeform wall onto these metal bars. It was still raining, but we worked anyway.

No one seemed very worried about this 'big wind' (taiphoon literally translates as 'big wind' or 'huge wind') so I tried not to either. However, when I saw camp staff, going around and putting an X of tape on each window, I assumed this was to keep glass from scattering too widely after being broken by projectiles hurled by the 'big wind', I did become a little concerned. After we finished work, we went and bought dinner, Jerry also got some noodle bowls and said they were for 'emergencies'. I think he was just joking though.