Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Updates - Brought to you by Typhoon Bolaven

Typhoon day!!!
(Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd hear myself say - especially after growing up in Toronto where the school board was hesitant to call snow days even in the midst of blizzards!)

With Typhoon Bolaven expected to be the worst storm in years to hit Korea, the country's school boards (and, in an unprecedented move, the private hagwons) unanimously decided to close for the day, instructing their students to stay home. We teachers were not so fortunate, we were told to come in and be on 'stand by' in case of 'needing to protect the school during an emergency' (though as one family member pointed out - "What good is a five-foot-nothing Italian girl against a Typhoon?!").

Happily, not only was the storm much less severe than predicted (though the winds did get quite strong and a number of fishermen, trees, and power lines were sadly lost), I was instructed last minute by my principal to "stay home and not leave the house until after 4:30 when he would no longer be responsible should something happen to me". ^_^

Luckily for you, the end result of all of this was that I finally had time to upload and parse through all of the photos from my recent trips to Beijing & North Korea (It was back to work for me (literally) as soon as I got home) - and that means you, lucky readers, may finally get to see some of them! In the mean time, please enjoy some of yesterday's blustery scenes as shot from my window (which I had, of course, left wide open in order to more fully enjoy my typhooning experience).

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