The weather is getting better again. The clouds let some sunrays hit the ground, newly created ponds evaporate in the warmth of a new day. After devastating parts of the country the tropical storms “Meranti” and “Megi” finally left the island. The Typhoons are gone and hopefully the Typhoon-season with them. If you imagined experiencing a typhoon in Taiwan is some kind of survival-of-the-fittest I have to disappoint you. Maybe in the rural areas, especially in the indigenous communities such as Zhulu, the storms hit harder. But within a safe environment such as my dormitory, it was a survival-of-the-least-bored. Instead of just sharing my story – about sitting in the room and waiting – in a plain vanilla way, I will introduce you to:
5 Tips to kill Time during Typhoons!
- Watch Series
The first awesome tip is to literally stare into a display for hours without doing anything but clicking the next episode. Instead of the faceless expressions teens make when writing “LOL” on their smartphones or the infamous quick-breath-out-of-the-nose, I had a really great time in laughing out as hard as I could. The show that kept my abs hurting for more than four hours is “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”. Produced and starred by Andi Samberg, previously known for the band “Lonely Island” and the song for the “Lego Movie”. It is about a Brooklyn Police Department, employing genius but immature police detectives. It is hilarious!
- Work out
Although watching series is quite funny for some time, all the unused energy has to be funneled into one productive activity. Instead of doing important studies I chose to work out, because biceps are importanter! So my colleagues and I dressed up for running and hell damn, we ran in this typhoon like nobody is watching. The fact that there is photo footage of me running indicates that a lot people watched. I can’t read anyone’s mind, but I am sure the majority of crowd was thinking: “Stupid Europeans!” We only managed to run three rounds, aka 1200m, before the wind got to strong. Rain drops felt like needles and watching for flying tree branches all the time is annoying too.
- Write a blog article
Another way to work out is not to train your muscles, but your mind and language. This tip is maybe not applicable for all of you dear readers, but you can change the word *blog* into *diary* because that is nearly the same, in my case. I wrote the article about the Host Family Program und started working on this. As you can see in my introduction, I did not finish this typhoon-article because the weather was not getting better but worse. Strong winds let the windows vibrate such as membranes of the loudspeakers at full volume at a random dubstep concert in June. The rain was going to break the laws of physics, but more of that in the next tip. So staying in the cozy bed, typing words of great wisdom and joyful experiences was a better amusement than running!
- Be creative
There are moments when you suddenly get quiet, your heartrate decreases and your brain is filled with only one thought: “Did I make the right choices in life?” The same phenomenon happened to me when I encountered my creativity. Here is what happened:
My roommate and I were chilling in our Casa Polstria (combination of Poland and Austria), I worked on my blog as tip four recommends when suddenly we heard water dropping on our floor. We looked closer and found that one fifth of our room turned into a bath tube. The rain and wind had been so strong, that water leaked into our room from more than one origin and we had to come up with an idea to stop us from getting drowned. We used every towel we had in our room and up to three T-shirts to build an artificial aqueduct to lead the water safely to its final destination, an empty trash bin.
Due to the typhoon “Megi” at one point a power cut happened and lasted for nearly three hours. Without electricity in the rooms it is even harder to keep track of your water-system so I had to improvise. I used our bathroom mirror to lead lights from the floor to the window. At this peak of creativity, I reconsidered my life choices. Instead of becoming a business manager I should be a facility manager or professional problem solver for the NASA. After five minutes I reconsidered my reconsideration and kept on studying business. But the main point of the story is: be creative!
- Eat
The last tip to survive the boredom of waiting for better days to come is eating. Sure, you need nutrition to survive in general, but during a typhoon you eat not only because of basic instincts such as hunger. Before the storms arrived Taiwan we were up to prepare ourselves with food. As you can see on the picture we chose the healthiest snacks and dishes.
Because almost every restaurant was closed we had to eat in the room. During the power cut we had to eat the sushi-rolls from the not-working fridge, when the electricity was back, we had to eat instant noodles, for reasons. Looking back, I regret nothing besides the fact, that I have do sport now every day to burn the approximately 10.000 calories I crammed into my mouth. This could be the reason for one of my next articles about sports in Taiwan.
The 5 awesome tips to kill time during typhoons I provided to you may help you, when you unluckily get struck by a tropical storm while traveling east Asia. One last secret tip at the end: Sleeping kills time the best, so grab your pillow and take a rest!
Deutsche Zusammenfassung
Taifun-Zeit in Taiwan ist zum einen spannend zum Erleben, zum anderen auch wirklich fade, wenn du in einem sicheren Haus bist. Ich habe hier 5 großartige Tips gegeben, wie man am besten die Zeit totschlagen:
- Serien schauen
- Sport betreiben
- Einen Blog schreiben
- Kreativität spielen lassen
- Essen
Ein letzter Geheimtipp noch: Schlafen ist immer noch am besten!
grexxen 
2 thoughts on “5 Tips to kill Time during a Typhoon”