A close one

Tip: When you are on the 28th floor of a building in a 3rd world country, know where the emergency stairway is located before you start your yoga class. That way, you'll know exactly where to head when, at the end of the class, the instructor says "fire" instead of "see you next time".

Sun-Ling needed to use up 3 yoga class tickets before the end of the month, so she took me along this afternoon so she could use up 2 of them. The yoga studio is on the 28th floor of the Olympus Building across the street from her office. Anyway, when the instructor said "fire" and the hallway outside the studio filled with white smoke, the kind that you get when plastic and styrofoam burn, I wished I had noted the location of the emergency exits when I got off the elevator.

We quickly grabbed our belongings and headed out to the hallway. There were no alarms. Luckily it was about 4PM so there was plently of light. Some of the folks on the 28th floor seemed not concerned and were waiting to take the elevator down. I yelled at Sun-Ling to take the stairs. Where are the stairs? At first we headed to the wrong end of the floor. We could not see more than 10 feet. A guy said the stairs were at the other end. So we hurried back to the other end and started walking down the 28 flights of stairs.

A mother and daughter who were in the class were walking down with us. The young girl looked really scared and was coughing at first so I gave her some encouragement and she did OK the rest of the way. The stairwell was filled with smoke, but not too thick, for about 10 floors. Then it got better. We ran into people at several of the landings - cleaning folks - but they did not seem concerned. I heard sirens. Then again, in a big city you always hear sirens.

We made down and out OK. I walked down all 28 floors in my bare feet. A fire truck was pulling up as we walked out. But again, no one seemed concerned. The first floor of the building is a shopping mall and it was filled with shoppers going about their business. I took a quick photo of smoke coming out of an upper story window and we headed over to Sun-Ling's nearby office to change clothes and rest.

From Sun-Ling's office, we looked back to the Olympus Building, expecting to see more smoke pouting out windows, but there was nothing. I guess it was all smoke and no fire. Not sure if we will ever know what exactly what happened, although Sun-Ling will go back next week to take her final class.

Moral of the story: Look for the little white man on the green sign exit sign before you take your yoga class.

When I got home, I was very surprised when I took a close look at the photo I took of the smoke coming out of the Olympus Building. I zoomed in to the window with smoke pouring out, and there were four heads sticking out nearby windows. Hmm.

I also have to admit, that after all the excitement was over, I was pissed that I had had my camera with me but had not taken any photos on the smoke filled 28th floor or on the emergency stairs. Oh well.