and this year, do some clean-up from the typhoon. The kids and I missed it by a day, but it was a whopper. The biggest in most people's memories. Even though we are on the 16th floor, we had some pretty serious flooding in our apartment as the drain on our balcony must have clogged, and it overflowed through the doors (that weren't watertight) and into the apartment. Betty and her mom were here and had to deal with it. She was messaging me with pictures and pleas for help. I will admit that I was not unhappy that I didn't have to deal and might have even muttered a "haw haw" to myself. Must say that they did an awesome job as it was hard to tell that the place had a 1/2 inch of water in it, not much of a smell and pretty dry. And Betty's mom is 80 so know it was hard on her poor body...sure wouldn't want my mom to have to work that hard. Am worried about our Turkish rug and some of the wooden floors, but otherwise, not bad.
The same can't be said for the flora around town. Trees of all sizes went down everywhere...quite astonishing at the number of them. The sound of chainsaws has been constant all day. Have to give the country kudos for weathering it so well. A similar strength storm in the Philippines would have (and has) leveled towns and killed hundreds. I read that only 6 died, and while power went out for millions during the storm, within 24 hours, power had been restored to all but a quarter million people. The infrastructure here is damn good.
But my thought for today is to relate just how pissed off I am at this country. Not for the reasons that you would expect from me however. Yes, the drivers are still complete butt holes, but I might be coming around in my opinion of them after watching my people's behavior this summer (more to come on that). And I wasn't angry at the Costco yesterday watching how many people are so out of it when they are in a public space. There was this guy at the exit yesterday and he was standing there in the middle of the lane with his cart perpendicular to the flow of traffic so only one cart could get by. I watched as a handful of people slowly eased past him to the receipt checkers before I rammed his cart out of the way. Tried not to be an asshole about it and did my best Rick Perry "Ooops" impression, but he got the message. I'm not even pissed at how merciless the heat is. That's not entirely true as this freaking heat and humidity cannot be understood unless you're in it for weeks on end without relief. Was at a baseball game in DC on a hot and humid day for them, and everyone was bitching about it. Paul and I were laughing at what pussies they were, but I suspect that the locals think the same of me as I bitch my way through the day.
What pissed me off was the new street signs. Have related at how most signs are in both Chinese and western lettering, but that the interpretation as to how to translate from characters to letters has changed over time and that the same words are spelled in almost comically different ways. I'm walking down the street yesterday and notice a sign that looks new.
You can tell from the above that the one on the left looks weather beaten and the one on the right is nice and clean. Here is a close-up of the one on the left...
Alrighty...that's all I have time for today. I promise to post more when I can.
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