Typhoon Ewiniar and Rain, Rain and More Rain

Last Monday Typoon Ewiniar hit and I was a little shocked that not only was my school not cancelled but EVERY SINGLE ONE of my students showed up. I still can't believe their mothers' sent them out in the middle of a natural disaster to attend an Academy. I really tried to teach cause I felt they risked their lives to come to class the least I can do is educate them but, alas, it was impossible. They were so hyper-active from either excitement or fear or both that by the time they got to my class it was all I could do to keep them down to a dull roar and inside the classroom. Forget about keeping them in their seats or teaching. I couldn't even get them to concentrate long enough to play a game.

Coming from Canada where we get storm days off from school I still surprised that nothing stops schools in South Korea not even dangerous natural disasters. The attitude seems to be one of complete nonchalance and/or denial. And, I guess it has even sort of rubbed off on me...

For example, I was out running around this weekend and traveling in the midst of the heavy rains. It didn't even occur to me that maybe it was a dangerous situation until tonight when I got a phone call from a Canadian Telephone Operator [my Mom was trying to call me and make sure I was okay and the lines were down here in South Korea. Actually, since I use a cell phone I guess it was the transmition towers that weren't working]. Some how this operator was able to get through to me and then I used a calling card and was able to call my mom and tell her I was okay.

Prior to this I had found the situation annoying and inconvenient but had failed to recognize the potential danger. So after hanging up from my mom I went on the net to read about the situation. I found this article in the Korean Herald which says that 12 people are dead and 25 are missing and thousands are homeless.

Korean Herald Article about Heavy Rains

I spent the weekend traveling to Gumi and Daegu where I used to live and taking a lot of pictures. I'll post about that later but for now I want to post my pictures of the rain storms I was caught in.

I took this picture outside the Daegu train station on Sunday, July, 16, 2006 in the afternoon. If you look closely at the cement you can see that the rain is hitting so hard that it is actually bouncing off and up into the air.

I this is a photo I took in Gumi on Sunday afternoon.

I took this picture while huddled in a doorway in Gumi waiting for the worst of the storm to end. Other people saw us there and decided it was a good place to wait out the storm so we soon had company.

This was taken Saturday, July 15, 2006 in Gumi. It shows the rain and the water pouring down a drain spout on the side of a wall. The white dots in the photo are actually huge rain drops.

This is a street scene or Gumi Saturday, July 15, 2006. I have to admit I have NEVER been in a rain storm like this before. We were laughing and saying we were in a monsoon. Little did we know just how close to the truth our kidding really was!