In the beginning of October 2007, me and my mom and a bunch of her coworkers went travel to Hainan province. It was a golden week vacation in China, everyone was excited to go somewhere nice and enjoy the week away from all the work and the cold weather of our hometown Chengdu. Hainan is a province in China famous of its warm weather, beach and coastal culture. We were expecting going to swim in the sea and having a lot of local seafood there.
However, on the second day of our arrival, Severe Tropical Storm Lekima landed on us.
I remember the dramatic temperature drop, it feels like walking into a refrigerator. Over night, everyone went from wearing shorts and T-shirts to sweaters and rain-coats. What more dramatic was the scenery I saw from our hotel room (because the storm triggered city alarm, we had to stay inside of our hotel rooms and wait for the weather to calm down and go out. When the storm strikes again we had to go back inside again). I saw raindrops running almost parallel to the ground; trees tilted to a twisted angle, almost pulled out entirely with roots; waves rising like some sea monsters trying to devour the harbors. The wind was howling like a couple thousand wailful ghosts emerging from hell, slamming on the hotel doors so hard that made them tremble constantly. It ruined our trip. For the rest seven days we were trapped in Hainan, forced to experience the whole storm strike because airports were shut down. thousands of flights canceled, shops closed, some of which destroyed, groceries and trash mingled together all over the streets.
My mom also has some memories of the storm. She told me that some streets were filled with water and were blocked from reach since some electric wires were drown in the water causing life hazard, and that we canceled all the tour plans and got stuck inside our hotel for a long long time. I asked her how did she feel, she said it was scary. Also she told me that this experience has taught her the unpredictability and non-negligibility of the weather, and that it was irresistible, if one dares to try, his/her own life will be the stake.
