typhoon alert

not in Beijing, lah!

seems like apart from Robina, a super typhoon Haitang is also heading towards Taiwan. Typhoon Haitang is super-duper kilat with winds up to 245km/hr. It's a Cat-5 storm (think Twister but w/o the twister) that will make landfall in East Taiwan by tomorrow morning. seems like Taiwan is hunkering down for a big one, authorities has oredi announced that financial markets, offices and schools would be closed tomorrow.

Robina should be OK since she is a Taipei-veteran. We experienced Typhoon Nari in 2001, when Chunghsiao East Rd (like our Orchard Rd) was underwater, and so was a major stretch of the Taipei MRT line. A lot of cars became submarines.

Robina called back last night to say that she has arrived safely. I told her to load up on cup noodles (SOP typhoon procedure in Taipei, plus Blockbuster rental DVDs), but Robina told me that the 7-11 in the hotel was miserable and she only managed to buy ONE bowl of instant noodles.

will check with her later tonite. but it's very likely Taipei will be rained-out for the most part of the week. Robina and her frens will probably hang out in Taipei 101 (used to be Asia's largest shopping mall for a brief period, before overtaken by Taichung and later Beijing) since the weather will be wet, wet, wet...