The falling moon takes with it my secret fears
Which, in the night, why my sky is starless,
Cause these eyes empty of you fill with tears
How I dread sleeping in the Kingdom of Darkness

You have left me a spirit in flight, I run around restless
My alien lives in a world I wish to be mine.
He, in all his magic, knows not of harshness.

Through the forest of humans I run blind.
Into this morning, I’ve not stepped before.
My alien sees as well in the darkness as in the bright light
His hopeless enchantment is of lost yore.

Being with him is like living in Heaven everyday
First he took my heart, then my last breath away.

Art Perez, spokesman for the Guam Power Authority, said the power agency has been clearing vegetation off of power lines all day and will continue to do so throughout the evening as the weather permits.

Perez also said that residents have called in sporadic power outages in isolated areas around the island.

An outage occurred before lunch today from Yona to Talafofo, Perez said.

Crews removed bamboo from lines at the intersection of Route 10 and Route 4.

Power has since been restored.

Heidi Ballendorf, Guam Waterworks Authority spokeswoman, said the agency is putting all 100 water wells on back-up generator power to continue to provide everyone with water during the storm.

According to Guam Homeland Security, the disturbance was 335 miles east-northeast of Guam as of yesterday afternoon. It’s drifting west-southwest toward the northern Marianas.

Paul Stanko, senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Guam office, said the storm system has the potential to organize into a stronger storm. However, that won’t happen until it moves west of Guam.

Until then, however, residents should expect heavy rain and thunderstorms.

High winds of about 30 miles per hour also are expected. These conditions will continue tomorrow and possibly Friday.

It’s been a week since I landed in mainland China to cover the 6th East Asian Games, but I’ve had little time to explore.

Tianjin is 4,600 square miles, or more than 20 times the size of Guam. It has a population of 13.5 million divided among 16 districts, and is just 120 kilometers away from the Chinese capital of Beijing.

From my brief travels, Tianjin appears to be a city built with plenty of room to spare, with plenty of gorgeous structures crafted in opulence, but with many plain, boxlike buildings, too.

Its roadways are wide, sprawling, six or eight lanes wide even in the bustling cities, and intra-city roads are proportionally bigger too.

Everybody shares these roads and highways, from commercial haulers to buses, to cars of every shape and size, to young people on fast bicycles and old people on electric cycles.

Traffic signals are the traditional red, yellow and green colors, but they are LEDs that offer countdowns — so you know exactly how long you have to wait before not being able to move when it’s busy.

Motorists are only slightly more organized but just as opportunistic as Philippine drivers. Many will often drive into oncoming traffic to get around a line, bleating their intent on horns as they weasel into openings ahead.

I’ve spent most of my time in the Hexi (ho-Ashi) district, between my hotel, the main press center and the sports venues in Tuanbo, Nankai and Xiquing (she-ching) districts. I’ve played “Frogger” across busy eight-lane highways and seen areas where five, even six levels of raised highways gently curl around each other.

The sports facilities are world class. It seems no expense was spared to make the venues athlete- and spectator-friendly and the exteriors were built as if architects and designers held competitions for each one. Like the famed Bird’s Nest that surrounded the Olympic Stadium five years ago, metal lattices and facades surround many facilities, equipped with light shows pretty enough to stop you in your tracks at night.

Few signs in English
Shopping malls can stretch for blocks, and roads are lined with multistory buildings that make highways seem like a thoroughfare through the world’s biggest strip mall. There are few signs in English, but I’ve been quickly able to spot the occasional KFC, McDonald’s and Burger King.

There is barely any traffic surrounding some of the sports facilities, and it seems no one is around until you get inside. The wide roads are flanked with tall, equidistant streetlights that seem to stretch into eternity.

Every once in a while, you’ll see another example of Chinese luxury — such as the humongous statue of Tianjin-born kung fu master Hoa Yuan Xia — who guards the entrance to a cultural center and family playground.

Fall weather has been mostly pleasant, though Monday’s forecast calls for rain — and that means temperatures in the 50s, say the locals.

Blanketing everything in sight is a gray haze of pollution, which obscures distant buildings when it’s light and cuts visibility to a football-field length when it’s heavy.

It’s as if someone tried to clean the world around you with a dirty rag.

During the day, the smog erases the clouds in the sky and turns the sun into a dull orange. It doesn’t hurt to glance at it for a bit.

Many people smoke cigarettes. Although malls, gyms and offices seem to be smoke-free, every bathroom and stairwell reeks of tobacco, and to a lesser extent, hotel and elevator lobbies.

No one seems to notice, I suppose, since they deal with the smog 24-7.

There’s not much else to complain about. Parking lots and sidewalks are mostly free of litter, and the food I’ve purchased has been reasonably priced. There are plenty of expensive restaurants offering unpronounceable delicacies, but I haven’t had the time to indulge.

The next few days don’t look good for free time either — Guam’s still got cycling, dragon boat and judo, and maybe bowling, coming up until Tuesday when the closing ceremonies are scheduled, and then I leave this strange, wonderful city on Wednesday.

I’m a little envious of some athletes who’ve made it to the Great Wall, and to malls for shopping and even nice restaurants. But then again, I’ll return to Hong Kong, which has everything that I want and more.

Except a Great Wall — nobody else has a Great Wall.

I’ll just have to save that for another time.