Something's Coming; Good Thing We Have Pizza

Typhoon season in Taiwan lasts from June through October and we've known for a week now that this year's first typhoon is coming this weekend. The four of us have all expressed excitement to one another for this typhoon since it will be our first. It wasn't until today, Friday, that the reality that a massive weather calamity heading our way was truly realized.

During my teaching rotations throughout the day I brought up the typhoon; figuring it would be a ripe topic for conversation. All of my students were more than eager to tell me all about typhoons and even this one, specifically. I even had one student go write on the white board and draw a map of Taiwan and then show the path of the typhoon during each of the next few days.

The part that's a bit of a bummer is that we are supposed to go to Taipei for a day trip tomorrow. Our church does a Temple trip once a month where they all take a bus and go together and tomorrow is this month's temple trip. They were originally going to take two buses. They've already cancelled one bus, but the other bus is still going. They're going to wait until the morning to decide what to do about the other bus. My guess is that they'll still go, regardless of the weather.

I was planning on going but the typhoon made me unsure, so I asked my students about it. I asked them if I should go to Taipei tomorrow for a day trip. Each of them told me not to go. I thought, "okay, but those are just my students and they're great but they're just kids. I should get more informed opinions before I make my decision." Between teaching I asked the parents of students what they thought and I asked the school secretaries as well. Literally every time I broached the subject to someone new, students and adults alike, they all acted as though my considering the possibility was crazy and advised that I not leave my apartment. So, after still toying around with the idea for a few more hours, I ultimately decided not to go even if the bus continues on. I just don't feel comfortable disregarding the warnings of every person around me in regards to a subject that I am admittedly ignorant about. Besides, they do a trip to Taipei for the Temple every month so I figure I can always join them next time when there's not a typhoon.

Knowing that we might be stuck in the apartment for the next two days made us want to go out and do something fun tonight, so after work we went to a restaurant called Pizza Rock. It was recommended to us by the previous teachers and it was only a block past the train station so we found it easily.

The menu with all of the yummies inside.

Megan was originally wanting to do Thai food for dinner, which I was completely fine with, but once we started browsing the online menu for this place our mouths began watering and we knew that we could get Thai food next time.

The restaurant was a cute little place. It was all very Western and it reminded me a lot of many pizza places I've been to back home. The tables and benches were made of wood, the lighting was dim, and they played Aerosmith for the majority of the time we dined there.

Cute little place.

Taken right after we ordered. I was more excited than is appropriate but I love me my food.

Megan and I decided to order two 8" pizzas and split them in half. Josh and Kim arrived after we ordered so they got their own pizzas.

Prosciutto

Spicy Chorizo

We ordered the Prosciutto (prosciutto, fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, havarti & mozzarella cheese) and the Spicy Chorizo (mozzarella, sliced spicy chorizo sausage, and fresh mozzarella). Both were fantastic but Megan and I agreed that we preferred the Spicy Chorizo if we had to choose only one.

Seafood

Quattro

Kim and Josh got the Seafood and Quattro pizza. They both looked delicious as well.

All that remained of our gluttony.

We had pizza, sure; but what about dessert? Megan and I already knew before we ever arrived at the restaurant that we wanted their chocolate brownie topped with vanilla ice cream. We were supposed to share one but when the fated time arrived Megan decided that she wanted her own. I (foolishly) decided to follow suit. Boy, what a mistake that was. It was fantastic. Delicious, even. But man was it too much. Now it might sound blasphemous of me to say that it was too much, but believe me when I say the human body is not meant to consume that much food in one sitting. I was grateful that we remained at the restaurant for a while because if I had to ride my bike home immediately after i'm pretty sure I would've lost dinner on the side of the road somewhere along the way.

The wonderful (evil) brownie.

You can see how thick that brownie is, right??

All in all we had a really good time. It was pleasant to go somewhere after work and celebrate the conclusion of yet another successful teaching week.

The lighting makes us all look yellow. Oops.

After we finished our feast we decided to go to the grocery store instead of returning straight home. We figured we might be stuck in the house for days and that it would be wise to stock up on vital supplies. We're new to this whole typhoon thing because every other person in Taiwan had the exact same thought. Apparently it's standard procedure for the masses to rush the stores the night before a typhoon and clean the places out because the shelves were empty. Seriously, it was as though we had stepped onto a movie set. You can tell where people's priorities are because all of the fresh produce and meat were gone. As far as vegetables go there were two heads of cabbage, some of the massive spongy mushrooms that hardly anyone uses, and a few romaine hearts left. That was it. But hey, if you want microwave noodles or jars of sauces they had plenty of those left. Josh and I cleaned out the only remaining beef on the shelves and then we made our way home to ride out the storm.

We'll see what tomorrow brings us and how big this typhoon really is.