Tag typhoon
I guess that we are all aware that our oceans are full of plastic. For me at least, this awareness was what I like to call an intellectual awareness that let me keep a kind of detected attitude to the problem – I knew it existed but it didn’t really affect my day to day life. Last weekend however, that changed. Me and my family went out to the beach and to my great surprise there was a wide belt of plastic trash topping the dunes, stretching the entire length of the beach. It had not been there the last … Read the rest
What's normally a small stream flowing lazily through an otherwise dry river bed has swelled with the rains of the latest typhoon to a wide, swift flowing river. Just a few meters from where I'm standing there's a kind of wier, consisting of a series of large concrete blocks, stretching across the river. Normally you'd be able to get across to the other side by jumping from block to block but today that's not possible. The entire wier has been turned into a waterfall, the concrete blocks engulfed in muddy brown water. Just below it, there's a massive standing wave, the water curling in on itself as it flows across the stones and concrete. A loud booming fills the air of this otherwise peaceful river valley. That even a relatively small typhoon can transform a river this much is a stark reminder of the truly awesome power of nature.
Now, I do not condone people pulling up their smartphones and filming the scene of an accident rather than helping the victim (this is a real problem, look it up). However, I do understand people engaging in disaster tourism, such as the people going to see the wreck of the Costa Concordia; destruction is exciting, like an action movie, the problem is that real disasters often entail real loss of life. When there are no people involved however (Mythbusters blowing something up, an abandoned house deteriorating and so on), I enjoy a bit of destruction as much as the net … Read the rest
The night is dark, the road is straight and I keep my hand firmly locked at the 50 kilometers an hour mark. The wind is ripping at my rain cloak and the rain drops pelt my body like little stones. The helmet’s visor is covered in droplets that cloud my view, I have to concentrate on the white lines to see where I’m going. Lifting the visor to see better is not an option as the drops hitting my face will sting my eyes and my soft exposed skin. The rain is so heavy I can even feel it drumming … Read the rest
The typhoon is here, the typhoon is here, it’s all over the news and we all know it’s here. While the people in cities all around us are caught in the storm, it is not much of it going on in Hsinchu. So, I have gone to the beach to get some typhoon action. To my left is the greyish sea, to my right a series of concrete wave breakers buried in the sand and an embankment leading up to the waterfront path. And underneath my feet is the dark gray, almost black, surface of the low tide sand. Light … Read the rest