The Waiting Game

So, I am going to take a wild guess and presume that none of you know that Taipei is about to get smacked straight on with a category 4/5 typhoon. For those of you who don't "speak Asian", a typhoon is what these folks call a hurricane. For the life of me, I can't figure out the difference. Massive amounts of rain? Check. Crazy strong winds? Check. Inability to find life's essentials of bread, water and Oreos at the local store? Check. Maybe one of you is a closet weather guru and can inform me on why we make a distinction. At any rate, this tempest is about to whack us dead-on.
"How did I not know about this?" you might ask yourself. The answer is quite simple. As it turns out, the English-speaking world really doesn't care that much about Asia. Before you feel too guilty about the ol' stars and stripes, let me tell you that we don't get the cold shoulder from Americans alone but from all anglophones in general. Even here in Taiwan the only thing that CNN "International" is talking about is Ike. Don't get me wrong, I am very concerned for my countrymen even if they are Texans, but I would like to know a little about what is happening off of my balcony. We have been able to watch the Taiwanese news channel and watch the storm tracker from there but there is only so much information I can glean from a few numbers dispersed between Chinese characters.
Despite not knowing when or how hard this typhoon is going to hit, we are trying to gear up the best we know how. I believe we've taken all the necessary precautions. We have made plans for games and movies with our friends and bought the 7-11 out of Pringles and Oreos. What else is there to do? Oh yeah, maybe take a few pictures! Now all there is to do for us is wait and see how we do. Wish us luck through our first major natural disaster!
Here's a few preliminary pics from our balcony for you:

Now you see the 101... Now you don't!