碧利斯 / Bilis

It’s Typhoon Season! Earlier this week Typhoon Ewiniar passed just east of Taiwan which only brought an afternoon of heavy rainy here in Taipei. Today we are awaiting the arrival of Typhoon Bilis (碧利斯). This one looks like it’ll cross straight over Taiwan. While these things are never certain, it’s close enough now that it looks like we’ll get a pretty direct hit in Taipei.

It’s already been raining with some moderately high winds today. For the first time I had my umbrella pop inside out due to the wind. Not that the wind is that strong yet, but it was a combination of holding the umbrella the wrong way when the wind suddenly shifted, and also the fact that it’s a cheap ass umbrella. Someone needs to figure out how to make a typhoon-capable umbrella. Regular umbrellas are too damn aerodynamic. Rain jackets aren’t suitable because they get very stuffy in the hot and humid weather.

We are probably going to close the restaurant early tonight and open late tomorrow, but since these things are constantly changing, we’re not sure of the exact times yet. My best guess right now is that the storm will gain strength here tonight at 8pm and keep up until mid-morning or as late as noon tomorrow.

Our buy one get one free sale is scheduled for Saturday and while the Typhoon will be gone by then, it’ll likely be a fairly rainy day. The big problem is that we had planned to have flyers distributed in the neighborhood today. Because of the typhoon the flyer distribution company told us yesterday that they weren’t sure they could do it. Eventually they realized that the typhoon was moving in slower than expected, so they picked them up for distribution today anyways. It’s kind of nerve-whracking to have the plans thrown up in the air though.