The day started out as any other. The sun beat down hard, strong and hot. The Wyatt and I rode the bike towards our destination under the pretense that we would arrive there as we had the day before. Riding along, the air seemed to still and you could have heard a pin drop. A pin drop you ask? A busy city and pins dropping do not correlate you may say. Today however was, as we would soon find out, not like any other. There were no cars on the road. There were no people crossing the street. I noticed in fact, that there were really no people milling about or walking on the sidewalk. What the crap? Two-fifteen in the afternoon no cars, no sounds, no movement? Again I said, What the crap? I stopped the bike at our "normal"corner and suddenly noticed that there were cops on nearly every corner of the intersection. Red, Yellow, Green...lights changing, green men signaling us to move....yet we were stopped- roadblocked. I signaled to the officer and asked(motioned actually) if we could go. No. No we could not. Not until 2:30 pm. This statement was punctuated by a loud sigh from the young man sitting a mere 2 inches from me, followed by a "C'MON.....I'M GONNA BE LATE FOR CLASS!!!!............."After calming
my young man down we proceeded on our freakishly bizarre journey. Finding a crosswalk unmanned by police, I suddenly went rogue and daringly crossed and ducked down side streets. More pins dropping. That is, until we were stopped by a friendly English speaking Taiwanese man who commented that we would not be able to continue down the street. Why I asked? Because of the drill. Drill? I pressed forward, pedaling tentatively towards our destination...until a cop blew us off the street with his whistle. He was unhumored by our brazen attempt. The Wyatt
was going to be late for class.
Two-thirty is when I finally heard it. "It" being the siren(for a siren, you'd think it'd be a bit louder). My confusion continued to grow until I reached Wyatt's school. Drill. Drill. What kind of drill could they possibly have been doing. Chinese fire drill? I began laughing to myself like a crazy person. Of course not. People were not running around their cars. No...it had to be something BIGGER. Reaching the school, covered in perspiration, face riddled with concern and confusion, I spoke to the director. The drill in question was in fact an air raid drill. She commented that there had not been one in quite some time?! OOOOK. Wow. The good news? It was just a drill.
*Side note-Curiosity got the better of me and I googled 'Taiwan air raid drills' and pasted the links below. Apparently next time I am to go into the basement of a nearby building, stay at home or anything other than crossing the road on my bike and remaining on the sidewalk. Awesome.
http://www.haoyah.com/English/news/e_asia24.asp
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_669866.html
Do do do do, do do do do, do do do do you've entered the Taipei Twilight Zone. A land of another dimension, like 4D, like a bad hangover, like trying to understand Mandarin. Where when you least expect it, you and only you (and of course The Wyatt) are the only one on the streets. Where are all those scooter riding people? If they actually get off the scooters, is there enough room for them to stand? And then as quickly as it came, it vanished in the time it took to blow a siren. Think about it...who controls that siren?????????
ReplyDeletebahahahahahahahha oh dad. This comment/post = perfection.
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