the central weather bureau website's graphics indicate that the typhoon seems to go southwards today, not fully hitting the mainland (and luichiu island). but still the impact will be about 40% to 80% of the typhoon's strength. but the weather on the island was nice, humid and hot as always, with a mild cool breeze. so we decided to rent a scooter[19,23-24] and go around the island, since we went to the local 7-eleven at the harbour and this way we could easily get our bought stuff back to the hotel. we bought food (mainly cup noodles, as we had a water boiler in our room) and sweets, and water. the hotel was empty, we were the only guests remaining, and also at the pier there were only local people. pretty strange compared to the day before where the streets and the pier were full of people. so we also were the only ones at the local tourist attractions like the "vase rock"[08-12], "sanlong temple"[25-31], and "geban bay beach"[32-35], where we went swimming for the first time. also for the first time on our taiwan trip we did not have tons of people around us. no noise, no stress, crowds - that was really wonderful. back in the hotel we used the google translate service to say thanks to the hotel staff and how much we enjoyed the food. so we trained the pronunciation and words, and when we recited them, no one understood us. at first the son looked puzzled, called for his mother. we thought, ok, bad pronunciation, and tried again. but again, the mother did not understand us. that was a little frustrating. so we showed them the chinese pictographs, and the finally understood. they were happy and flattered by our words (or signs, to be more precise). ah, just for the sake of consistency: the food[36] was awesome! track: day 12