11:13 am greencastle, july 17; 12:13 am taipei, july 18

two days to departure, three to arrival...

hrm...this past day feels like two for some reason; not because it was especially long or packed or anything. maybe just because i traveled far. or, maybe because i just copied five pages of written text...which made for a decent post once typed. ah, well. whatever.

first things first: got to sleep in a bit. it was nice. would have slept in like an hour (at least) more if my mom hadn't deliberately misled me...but i guess it'll be okay. see, she woke me up at ten or so, yelling at me and telling me that we had to leave really soon to catch our noon (or so) flight back to taipei, most importantly, before the typhoon arrived. well, so i got up, showered and everything, and quickly packed, with her rushing me along the way. then, when i'd gathered all my stuff and completely prepared to go, i suggested we do so, and she said, oh, wait, uncle alex just went out to do a bit of shopping; he'll be back in just a bit. uhh...well, why don't we go down and wait or something? no, no, it's fine; i'll just go out and look for him quickly. you wait here. well...whatever, mom, just remember, we have to hurry. you know, i think that she's been rushing me so much all this time, she'll be quick out and back, coming shortly even if she doesn't find her brother, knowing that he may have arrived without her. well...so like five minutes after she leaves, my brother knocks on the door of our hotel room. ah...how convenient. now we're just waiting for my mom, who should be back very shortly.

the paragraph break represents the forty-some minutes that we waited, eventually doing so down in the lobby, where our ride had come to meet us, and putting all of our stuff into his car. they wonder if maybe she may have gone out to buy some stuff, not just look, but i say no, no way, of course not, she wouldn't do that when we're so rushed; she's smarter than that, she should know what she's doing. long time after she left, my uncle decided to go out in search of her. like ten minutes later...our ride, my grandfather-in-law (or whatever) headed out too...so i'm sitting here in the lobby, listening to franz ferdinand, green day, incubus, or something, worrying about how late we're going to be, how much we'll have to rush, and what'll happen if my mom got lost or something. and, of course, they all come back together; they hadn't wandered off far, any of them. unfortunately...they come back bearing a good few bags full of stuff. my mom had gone shopping. effing a. that's *not* what i'd expected of her. see if i ever trust her again when it comes to time at all--trying to be early, on time, or whatever. pssht...i'll just stop there. i was pretty upset by her irresponsibility and lies. she says that she hadn't planned on buying anything when she went out in search of my uncle, but i'm not sure if it was exactly as simple as that, and she definitely wasn't concerned at all about making the flight. in the face of an impending typhoon. later on, she seemed concerned enough to consider going back by train, but...i dunno. once again, i wasn't too happy. if i'd pulled a stunt like that, my consequences would be none too light.

and then, of course, every flight for taipei that we could make (like...ten, or so, between twoish, when we got there, and sixish) was fully booked. the first one that seemed like a possibility was at 7:35 or something, and even that was iffy, for most flights after even seven were being cancelled due to the winds and rain. *sigh*...stand-by lists.

fortunately, though, my uncle knows the general manager of taipei airlines or something, so he called him up, talked for a bit, and got the general manager or whoever from the local airport to come around and hook us up with some tickets on a 3:30 or so flight. that definitely, definitely worked out well. connections are a good thing. so we made it back to taipei easily enough, in the end. oh, had some more chocolate milk tea, too...and it was awesome. i'll probably be drinking more of the stuff if i can find it. woo!

mom says weather reports predict some 1340 mm of rainfall through this typhoon--or was it just monday? i can't remember. but...think about that. it's over a meter--well over, at that, and more than four feet. that...is kind of...a lot of water. a *whole* lot. impressive.

...then went upstairs and gamed for a while with carl and barney, talked for a while, whatever. set a whole bunch of new records for them in smash bros. with marth and a few other characters--17:03 or so for the target challenge. woo? iunno. uhh...helped them figure out a new game that's copied, so japanese only (fake games are huge here. that means availability and cheapness.). ah...watched part of some anime that they've just finished downloading (the entire season, to date, that is)...about bread. baking, that is. uhh...two words: solar hands. apparently...no, i don't really get it, so nevermind. just...it's about baking bread. and pretty funny. one just has to be a very quick skimmer in some parts, where they have the english subtitles scrolling quickly on the bottom of the screen and explanations of cultural or whatever references on the top, flying by at the same speed as the subtitles. pretty cool, though. pretty cool...

...typhoon's almost arrived, methinks; at least the outermost parts of it have definitely already reached us, as one can tell by the constant rain (relatively heavy, but not torrential) and significant wind. makes me happy. woo! it'll be better tomorrow, no doubt, but it does mean that i had to, and probably will have to, cancel meeting a few people, what with the dangerous winds blowing ads or whatever down and dangerous potential flooding. ah, well. it's a loss, but i'll get over it, and i'll probably be back in the future. one thing's for sure, though: i'll definitely hear from them more through this very computer. well...assuming it doesn't get zapped by this storm. hrm...i'll just wait a few more minutes with it on before unplugging it to be safe. 'kay.