There's going to be a what?

After finally coaxing the internet company into sending a repairman to my apartment this week, I now officially have my first Korean bill to pay. As Korean bank accounts don’t come with checkbooks, I’m still a bit unclear as to how exactly one goes about doing this; the repairman mentioned that I need to pay it at the bank. Or with the bank. Or by the bank. Regardless, I have a month to figure it out, so I’m not too worried.

Even with this access to a world of information, I did not find out until last night that a typhoon was set to hit Busan today. I’ve never been a person who checks the weather religiously, and marvel at those people who can give you the week’s forecast down to the likely percentage of rain and inches of snow predictions. I generally just need to know if it’s hot or cold, and beyond that I pretty much always carry an umbrella in my bag, a habit which I picked up in Paris.

I had noticed that it had been raining for two days straight, and was wondering if we were entering a rainy season of sorts. I kept meaning to find out if Korea even had a rainy season, but kept getting distracted by emails and whether or not Britney Spears was fat or high or both. You know, more important things than knowing a giant storm was about to descend on my city. So it wasn’t until I made a joke last night about it seeming like there was a monsoon in Busan did I find out that no, Travis. This is not a monsoon; this is a typhoon.

To be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure what a typhoon was. Thank god for Wikipedia, which told me that typhoon and hurricanes are the same thing. And that typhoons hit the southern tip of Korea regularly. Similar to the rest of the world, these storms have been getting stronger every year – unless of course you believe that global warming is a myth; then you think the buildings are getting weaker. Either way, there’s a lot of rain coming my way.

A ferry taking a rest after Maemi

In 2003, Korea was swamped by the worst typhoon in a century – Maemi. And the area it hit the hardest? Busan. Winds reached speeds of 135 mph, tossing boats into the air, killing over 100 people and causing over $1.3 billion dollars in damage across the country. I still can’t find any English news about the current storm, but the dark clouds gathering outside my fifteenth story window are enough to tell me it’s not exactly a good day to go to the beach. My area of Busan is located a bit more inland, and I’ve heard teachers from other schools by the coast are coming over to my neighborhood today to wait out the storm and avoid any flooding.

Having lived a typhoon-free life, I have no idea what I should be doing, but I feel like I should do something at this point. Stocking up on canned goods or boarding up windows or filling sandbags. Something. What will I end up doing? Probably cook myself some food, do some reading and watch the typhoon from my window. I would have been useless during Katrina.