The day before, I was really tired, and was looking forward to falling in a deep, uninterrupted sleep. Alas, sleep was elusive to me as there were really strong winds howling outside. The wind was just hitting the walls outside really hard, making it very difficult to sleep peacefully. I am talking about strong howling winds that seemed to shook the hotel... I felt like the entire building was going to be blown away! :O Also, the winds were so powerful that even a couple of plastic bags that I had lying on the floor were moving. -__- Do you know how scary is that wtf.
I then tweeted jokingly that maybe I should check with the hotel whether there is a typhoon outside. And shortly after that, I received a barricade of tweets asking me, "Ya, there is a typhoon in Seoul now, you don't know meh?"
FML.
I quickly did a Google search, only to find out that indeed there was a typhoon, Typhoon Bolaven, which hit Seoul (more details here). Apparently there were a few people who died at the sea already in the morning, and there are more people lost at the sea. I saw a picture of the typhoon (below), and I gulped nervously.
Gulp.
My immediate thought was, fuck, how am I going to finish my work in Seoul. And my second thought was, what if the typhoon doesn't let up and I am forced to miss my flight home. T___T
I needed to go out that day to run bank errand, so the boyfriend was advising me to buy an umbrella. At that same time, my dad emailed me and asked me to not buy an umbrella during a typhoon and get a raincoat instead. The men in my life. Haha.
I basically kept myself captive in my room during the day, and on-and-off I would check the weather conditions outside. It was raining intermittently, but the winds were continuously blowing fiercely. From my room I could actually get a pretty good view of the subway station, and I noticed that the subway service was still running and there were people in the station-- a good sign. I then made a decision to go out to the bank.
Immediately when the rain let up a little, I ran out-- without an umbrella, I might add. I bought one at a nearby convenience store, and being a smart-ass, I got the cheapest one. A super strong gush of wind blew towards my direction (it was so strong that it was difficult to move forward), and I sort of angled my umbrella forward to block the wind. Before I knew, it, 'crack!', and my umbrella was broken. All within a grand total of 5 minutes of owning the umbrella. -_-
Anyway, I successfully completed what I wanted to do at the bank. Aside from the super fierce winds, I think the typhoon wasn't as bad as I imagined. I mean, I lived to tell the tale! wtf.
And that concludes my first ever typhoon experience.
PS: Prior to this, my only experience with typhoons is the Typhoon Shelter noodles with pork chop in Kim Gary WTF. It is very yummy, by the way.
PPS: Taepung is typhoon in Korean. Some kind souls tweeted me the translation on my Twitter! Thank you, I love you guys!
