Typhoon Monday and Pancakes

So Jangmi turned out to be a pretty big bust. We were supposed to be sacked and right near/in the eye of the storm around 9 p.m. last night, but the worst wind and rain came and soon went around 6 p.m. as we watched X-Men in Faith, Nell and Alana's apartment.

This is not to say that our apartment didn't sustain some damages -- part of our ceiling in the kitchen mysteriously fell in, the living room and kitchen floors flooded with water, and the boards that our landlord had carefully installed over the balcony doors splintered and blew away. Still, our rooms and possessions were fine, and after some fine mopping by Brittany our common spaces are now inhabitable again. But, we didn't experience a lot of the same wild window shaking and building swaying that we had with Typhoon Sinlaku.

Overall, we spent the typhoon well, though. We mixed up movies with cards and invented Tai Chi and yoga poses, as well as a rousing late-night game of Truth and ("xiao" or "small") Dare or Super, Red-Hot ("da la" or "big spicy") Dare. You could choose your poison -- big dare or small dare and a truth -- and questions and dares were quite appropriately matched to the person. Some highlights include an inspired rendition of "I Feel Pretty" by Brett, prank calling a friend in America using a Ladies' Man soundboard, and a drink-sipping timed race in which you had to take a sip of aboriginal rice wine, red wine and Heineken beer from a mega-can as quickly as possible.

This morning after sleeping in for a while, Brittany, Alana, Faith and I enjoyed our new typhoon tradition of day-after pancakes. And while this is indeed a stock-photo to the left, I must say that I cooked an impressive spread of whole wheat pancakes, cinnamon apple topping (tough to find syrup in East Asia), scrambled eggs, and grapes. We put on the presidential debate and I was swiftly asleep for a nice afternoon nap.

So, while this might seem pretty basic, here are the recipes from this morning which were so simple to concoct in our Asian kitchen, yet came out with great Western, autumnal flair!

Whole Wheat Pancakes (serves 2 to 4)
(Note: We have no measuring utensils, so these are estimations, but pancakes from scratch are so easy...it's all about finding your desired consistency.)

3 c. whole wheat flour
2 tbsp. white sugar
3 tsp. baking powder
a few shakes of salt
3 eggs
1/2 c. to 1 cup milk or until desired consistency
melted butter

Mix everything together until it is well blended, although lumps are ok. This batter was thicker than I normally make, but still turned out incredibly well. Heat the skillet until water drips bead on the surface, but keep your heat as low as possible to avoid cooking too fast and burning. Butter the skillet, apply the batter and flip when ready. These cakes didn't bubble as pancakes normally do (I'm not sure why), so check the edges to determine when they are ready to be flipped.

At the same time, make the cinnamon apple topping.

Cinnamon Apple Topping (serves 4)

2 apples, diced into small pieces
1 c. water
cinnamon
sugar

Dice apples. Put into a pot with a cup of water and cover. Add a liberal amount of cinnamon and sugar to taste (I think I used 1 cinnamon and 2 tbsp. sugar). Stir and replace lid. Let the water cook down into a syrupy sauce, but make sure to stir often to prevent overcooking on the bottom.

While we had planned on pancakes which I normally make from scratch, this topping was a great impromptu addition for a western breakfast.

Awaiting Jangmi

According to the local Taiwanese, this is a weird typhoon season. We are awaiting our third typhoon in two weeks which will probably hit Taiwan at some point between Sunday night and Monday morning. Right now, Super Typhoon Jangmi is a category 4 (same scale as hurricanes), though it is expected to be a category 3 by the time it hits land.

Brittany and I spent our first typhoon visiting Brett, Mary and Paige in Yilan City (my old apartment), but we will be weathering this one in our apartment in Luodong. We just got back from stocking up on food (fruit, onion pancakes, stuff to make regular pancakes) and red wine. We're also readying our movie collections for the 'phoon, as there is really very little else you can do than hang out and watch movies.

While we didn't really experience the last typhoon with the exception of some rain, the eye of this one will be somewhere over the island and it seems to be heading north. Typhoon Sinlaku, our first, hovered over Yilan County for quite a while producing some very scary wind and rain. The whole building (we were on the 14th floor) was swaying and the windows shook pretty violently. Even though Sinlaku was only a category 1 typhoon, it caused a lot of damage to the area because it sat over us for so long without really moving. (To left: Courtyard of the Yilan apartments after Sinlaku.)

It will be interesting to see how Super Typhoon Jangmi affects the area, and while I hope that everyone is safe and no property is destroyed, I am also kind of excited for it to hit. We are anticipating a Typhoon day (no school) and looking forward to spending hours watching movies and hanging out. My apartment should be fine (only on the 7th floor) and while we have some large windows, the layout of our apartment gives us a little more protection in the interior of our apartment than Brett, Paige and Mary's did. Plus, there is nothing like typhoon food -- it is a certainly an enjoyable dining experience!

Happy Confucius Day!

Sunday is Teachers' Day, or Confucius Day. We just found out that, to celebrate Teachers' Day the county government is giving us free tickets to see Cape No. 7, a very popular Taiwanese movie.

It is the first domestic Taiwanese movie to do well in a number of years and seems to be pretty interesting. To bring a big time singer from Japan to a small Taiwanese town, the promoters have to form a local band to be the opening act. This story is intertwined somehow with a love story from the Japanese withdrawal in the 1940s. Feel free to watch the preview here!

Time flies in Taiwan!

Wow! Can it really have been almost one month since I have written a post?! Time certainly flies on this small island! I will try to be more consistent, and, in fact, find that I am always writing blog entries in my head, but somehow they never make it onto the computer. Hmm...

In the meantime, if you find that you would just love to find out more about life in Taiwan, consider reading some of the other blogs from my fellow Fulbrighters (I especially recommend Adam's blog which is updated very regularly) or dropping me an email!