Shanshan - my first typhoon

unless you count the one on Monkland in Montreal... but that's a bar and this is a tropical cyclone. that's right, a real typhoon is heading almost straight for South Korea, it's just south of us now and should hit full on tonight. the wind outside is shaking my window covered balcony and the noise of the rattling is quite astonishing... i keep thinking that the windows are just going to blow in... but of course, this isn't THEIR first typhoon, and it's not like i'm right on the coast... just close to it.

so, what is a typhoon? according to discovery.com it's "a term for a hurricane occurring in the North Pacific or the China Sea." that's right, a hurricane... at least i live on the third floor of a building on a mountain - no flooding - but the winds are still a little scary. i hope my mom doesn't hear about it - she'll be flipping out. the image to the left is a satelite of the typhoon as of early this morning, it's a lot closer to Korea now... i hope you all can find Korea on that map (it's due north of the center of the storm). my city - gimhae - is just north of Busan which is on the southeastern most edge of the country, we're going to be hit hardest - well, second only to the island of jeju, but that's because it's an island. i just hope that the power doesn't go out - i'll die of boredom if that happens.

Korea is used to getting typhoons, this is the 13th this year. the next image is the typhoons' forecasted path - as you can see it has changed and is headed pretty much for japan (where people have already died from it - three of them, i think) but it gives you an idea of the speed of the wind - red circles = 50 knots (~92km) or more, the yellow circle = 30 knots of more - don't know if that's per minute/second or what... but i can assure you the wind is CRAZY. so pray for me while i sit in my apartment and listen to the winds, i know it seems kind of silly, it's just another storm... but i've never heard anything like this before... if you want to read a little more about my typhoon check out this article.