Tropical Storm Talim

When Amanda and I were told by our English School that they would offer us both contracts, we were faced with the daunting task of listing our top three preferences for where we would like to teach. We were provided with a list of 14 locations in Taiwan along with a short blurb about each. We chose Taichung as one of our top three preferences partly because the accompanying blurb indicated that Taichung has great weather, and is not too hot and not too cold. We also learnt that because Taichung is somewhat surrounded by mountains to the north, south and east of the city, it is also much more sheltered from Typhoons than other locations in Taiwan. 

Because Typhoons most commonly approach Taiwan from the east of the island, this last fact meant that for the most part, during our time in Taiwan, when a national typhoon day was declared and school was canceled, the weather in Taichung was uneventful if anything. Tropical Storm Talim, unlike all the other tropical depressions we experienced while we were in Taiwan, approached the island from the west, and came right up along the Taiwan Strait, nestling itself in between Taiwan and mainland China. It was a doozie of a tropical storm. Windows were writhing and rattling in their frames, rain was pounding the pavement, and trees were bowing and bending to the wind. 

At one point, the wind and rain calmed enough that I was able to briefly go up to the building roof with camera and tripod in hand and take a few photos. The picture below is actually a composite of three different pictures, one underexposed, one exposed correctly, and one overexposed.