Podcast: Typhoon Running

Hello and welcome to Green-Eyed English, a podcast for intermediate English speakers. Interesting topics, with real, understandable spoken English. I'm Dan Green and today I want to tell you a story… a story about a run I will never forget.

Although I was born in the UK, I've lived abroad now for more than a decade, more than 10 years. Some of that time was in Hong Kong, where I worked as a teacher. I first moved to Hong Kong because I was really interested in the city's culture and history. For a long time, I've loved watching Hong Kong movies from the 80s and 90s, for example. Also, I have a Master's degree in Asia Pacific studies, and one of the best parts of that degree was learning about China's history.

So, I moved to Hong Kong and was looking forward to renting a nice apartment on a crazy high floor and looking out on the city lights every night…

…but… Hong Kong is expensive! Extremely expensive... damn expensive! If you want to live in the city, you either need to be very rich or you need to live in a tiny apartment. And when I say tiny, I mean tiny. Some apartments in Hong Kong are about the same size as a parking space…

So, to cut a long story short, I rented an apartment in a place called Tai Po. Tai Po is in the north of Hong Kong, in an area called the New Territories, quite close to the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. It is less crowded than the main city and cheaper because it is about 30 minutes by train from Hong Kong Island. An old school friend of mine also lives in Tai Po, so he recommended it, and it was cool living close to him again after many years.

Now, one nice thing about Tai Po is that is has lots of outside space, so there are lots of places to run. In particular, there is a beautiful, long running route from Tai Po all the way down to a place called Tai Wai. This run is along a beautiful natural harbour, and then follows a river all the way down to the mountains at Tai Wai, where you have to either stop or get on a train to go under the mountains.

To be honest, around that time in my life, I was struggling with alcohol. I was drinking too much and having times when my mood was very low. So, I started running more. Running to feel better, running to drink less, and, well… just running to escape life really. Although running did not stop me drinking alcohol completely, it did improve things.

I remember one Sunday morning run very clearly. I remember it because I had been drinking the night before. And when I say drinking, I mean drinking heavily. I woke up feeling awful… the usual hangover problems: headache, dry mouth, tiredness. But, worse than that, I also remember feeling really down, really depressed.

So, I drank a big cup of water, put on my running shoes, and started running.

It was still early and the sun was still not up when I started. I felt sick, my head was spinning, and my legs were stiff, but stepping outside felt good. I ran down the hill from my apartment and went towards the harbour. As I reached the water, the sun started to come up and everything suddenly became beautiful: the water started to shine red and orange, like it was on fire; I suddenly saw that the small islands had low clouds sitting on them, and a light wind started blowing into my face.

Immediately, despite all the pain, all the guilt, all the alcohol, I felt happy to be alive again.

However, because I was drunk the night before, I had forgotten that a typhoon was coming. A typhoon is a powerful storm and they are very common in Hong Kong. In fact, Hong Kong has a typhoon warning signal from 1 to 8, where 1 is a very weak strong and 8 is an extremely strong storm and very dangerous. That light wind that I was enjoying was actually the start of a dangerous typhoon.

As I ran, the wind started to get stronger. The sky clouded over, too, and it started raining. At this point, I probably should have noticed that no one else was outside, but I didn't… I kept running, and running, and running, and the weather kept getting worse and worse. Soon, I had my head down because the wind was hurting my eyes, and I was dripping wet.

But… I kept on running. By this time, I had realised that it was a typhoon, but that didn't stop me… I was too lost in the run. It felt like nature was washing away my hangover and it felt amazing. I felt more alive than ever before. By the time I reached the end of the run, trees were being blown about and branches were breaking off, so I was lucky that the mountains at Tai Wai stopped me from continuing. When I went into a train station to catch a train back home, I looked a mess - soaking wet, cold, crazy hair – but I was smiling. I remember people in the train station looking at me like I was a madman.

Since then, I still run, and I have had some other amazing runs. But that is the one run I will never forget. And I hope that I get to have another experience like it in the future, although perhaps not in a typhoon… running in a storm like that is pretty dangerous, and I don't recommend you do it. Unless, perhaps, like my drinking at the time, you are doing something far more dangerous.

So, how about you? Got an experience that you will never forget? Leave me a comment or send me a message – I'd love to hear from you!

Finally, if you are a language learner, you should visit my website at greeneyedenglish.com where you can download a learning pack for this episode. It has a transcript, a glossary of interesting language, and notes on useful phrases and grammar.

Nice talking to you. Bye bye!