Welcome back to Okinawa, Much Love, Jelawat
9/29/12
Welcome back to Okinawa...today's welcoming committee is none other than the Typhoon Jelawat. Jelawat was successful in making sure that I had sustained a natural disaster on each and every single one of my overseas assignments. This was is my first typhoon (Present tense because we are currently waiting for the back (and more powerful) half to come through. In the process of the typhoon the hotel lobby glass was blown out, we lost power, my toilet water was moving around like crazy, the building was shaking, no power=no AC=no bueno, and there was some water leakage into the hotel. What I was looking forward to most (being cooped up so I could catch up on sleep and fight the jetlag) was actually the exact opposite of what happened.
The winds started to really stir up in the middle of the night (between 1 and 3 am) which is precisely when I lost my ability to sleep. Awesome, just when I thought my sleep pattern was starting to get on track...it wouldn't be an overseas assignment without 1. sleep issues, and 2. natural disasters.
So around 3am we had 90mph winds (and this wasn't the eye of the storm)
I took a video of the water moving around in my toilet, tried to capture the building shaking but that's a bit hard when you yourself are shaking with it!
As I sit here typing this blog post we were instructed to stay in our rooms (and not open the door to the hallway), the elevator is not functioning, the first floor of the hotel is pretty much demolished and dysfunctional, and we are awaiting what is said to be the worst part of the storm, the tail end, that will carry the most powerful winds.
Here is a video that I took around 7am (not nearly the strongest winds) down on the first floor (before it was destroyed) when we were eating breakfast.
While it is slightly more calm I will try to catch up on some reading and TV shows (you know, since I can actually hear in my room now!) Is this what prison feels like?!
Welcome back to Okinawa...today's welcoming committee is none other than the Typhoon Jelawat. Jelawat was successful in making sure that I had sustained a natural disaster on each and every single one of my overseas assignments. This was is my first typhoon (Present tense because we are currently waiting for the back (and more powerful) half to come through. In the process of the typhoon the hotel lobby glass was blown out, we lost power, my toilet water was moving around like crazy, the building was shaking, no power=no AC=no bueno, and there was some water leakage into the hotel. What I was looking forward to most (being cooped up so I could catch up on sleep and fight the jetlag) was actually the exact opposite of what happened.
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| Taken from my balcony-lobby destruction (hotel staff says these have never broken) |
The winds started to really stir up in the middle of the night (between 1 and 3 am) which is precisely when I lost my ability to sleep. Awesome, just when I thought my sleep pattern was starting to get on track...it wouldn't be an overseas assignment without 1. sleep issues, and 2. natural disasters.
So around 3am we had 90mph winds (and this wasn't the eye of the storm)
I took a video of the water moving around in my toilet, tried to capture the building shaking but that's a bit hard when you yourself are shaking with it!
As I sit here typing this blog post we were instructed to stay in our rooms (and not open the door to the hallway), the elevator is not functioning, the first floor of the hotel is pretty much demolished and dysfunctional, and we are awaiting what is said to be the worst part of the storm, the tail end, that will carry the most powerful winds.
Here is a video that I took around 7am (not nearly the strongest winds) down on the first floor (before it was destroyed) when we were eating breakfast.
While it is slightly more calm I will try to catch up on some reading and TV shows (you know, since I can actually hear in my room now!) Is this what prison feels like?!
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