Typhoon Wipha (Part 1 of ?)

So, yesterday Peter and I were on an aggressive hunt for coffee filters all over town. Coffee has been a constant struggle and we sometimes chew coffee flavored gum or go to Walmart where they are sampling instant Nescafe just to get a fix. We were spending twice as much money at Starbucks as we were on food each day, so we knew we had to change our ways. We spent some of our "home improvement" budget on a coffee pot and ordered a shipment of Yunan (not Yuban)--local Chinese arabica coffee with free delivery and 50% off new orders--so all we needed were coffee filters. All the coffee in the grocery store here is instant, so of course no one understands the need for coffee filters. We went so far to as place a triangle-folded piece of paper into the coffee pot at the store to indicate that we wanted to find such useful origami elsewhere in the store, but the message did not translate.

This was a two hour mission. Meanwhile it was raining. Hard. And as we rode our bikes across town from one store to another, the wind was blowing us off the road and the streets were filling with water. I knew it could rain here, but this was sensational. We were laughing, enjoying the shower and the silliness of us braving this sort of weather for coffee filters. I said, "I haven't seen rain like this since Hurricane Ivan came through Tuscaloosa." It was quite the downpour.

When we got home, I had an e-mail from the dean of international students at my school. It went like this: "A typhoon is attacking Shanghai. Please stay inside and close all windows and doors." "Oh," Peter and I said to each other, "that makes sense." But we still hadn't found our coffee filters, so we went to Walmart and found them boarding up the windows and sandbagging the neighborhoods nearby. But inside, everyone was calm and we searched the store over for coffee filters, picking up some water and beer and other staples just in case we were "attacked" by a typhoon. We even sampled some milky Nescafe to hold us over.

Wipha was all over the American news, but there was nothing about it here. The local weather report said it was raining. Yes, it was. About 10 inches worth. Today, it is dry. The air is thick like a blanket and the wind is picking up. We have no idea what to expect from this storm if it really is coming toward Shanghai. But so far, all is well. We have lots of Reeb and 9 seasons of Seinfeld and we're on the fourth floor. (Come to think of it the turtles do seem a bit agitated today...perhaps they can predict the weather).