Typhoon Ma-on

The bad news is there's a large typhoon coming - the most likely trajectory will have the storm glance off the edge of shikoku (the best protective island ever) and wakayama before heading back out to the pacific. The 50 knot wind circumference will likely hit Kobe, though and there's the outside possibility that the storm will head inland farther and hit Kobe dead on. We find out some time around 3am tonight.

The good news is that:

A: School was cancelled for the afternoon (work at home time)
B: School was cancelled for tomorrow (work at home time)
C: I get to focus all my energy and time on the nagging projects that have been building up with no distraction from teaching classes, students being chatty, students wanting to make up missed classes, co-workers (who I love, but who can be a bit chatty as well)
D: I get to eat all sorts of great snacks I stockpiled for the typhoon
E: I get to listen to lots of rain and wind while tucked in nice and snug indoors
F: The weather has cooled down! Its perfect Jaci-temperature! Hooray!

All together, I'm pretty happy with typhoon Ma-on. Of course, I hope nothing happens to make me eat my words, but based on past typhoon experiences, I'm pretty confident. Japan seems to have exceptional typhoon infrastructure - especially in the cities. We weathered a larger typhoon than Ma-on our first year and other than some downed tree branches, there was no damage.

I'l post again if anything exciting happens, but I'm looking forward to 24 hours of cozy, snack-filled, "get-stuff-done" time.

If you want to track Ma-on, I recommend the Japanese Meteorological Agency

Update: Ma-on seems to have bounced off of the tip of Shikoku and is heading back out to sea. Shikoku had massive flooding and Wakayama is still getting pounded, but far less of Japan was hit than expected. Here in Kobe we had heavy rain yesterday with strong gusts of wind every now and again, but nothing more than a regular storm. There was none of the window rattling that kept us awake and nervous during the other big typhoon two years ago. Now the grey storm clouds are heading away from us and the sun is coming out.

Time to get to work!

Earthquake! (Not the scary kind)

Russell and I went out to dinner tonight at a British pub downtown. I think I've mentioned it before - its called Hobgoblin and is, in fact, a chain of the same pub that was down the street from our apartment in Reading, UK a few years ago. The pub is up on the 7th floor and offers a lovely range of british beer at british temperatures and cider. It also offers a delightful range of distinctly British pub fare. We got to choose between bangers and mash, fish and chips, daily pie (as in meat pie in gravy), shepherd's pie and a number of other international pub/bar favorites like burgers, nachos, kebab, steak-filled pita pockets, etc. Its no wonder the place is crawling with foreigners. The waitresses refused to speak to Russell in Japanese.

Right around the last french fry the whole place started swaying. Everyone was a little wide-eyed and the waitresses quickly turned on the TV. Over the top of a TV variety show displaying one restaurants secret yakitori techniques, the TV reported a level 5 earthquake centered in Wakayama (South of Osaka). The tremor in Osaka was reported at a level 3 and I can only guess that Kobe was below that.

Experiencing an earthquake a little higher off the ground made it more notable, though, and added some excitement to our evening. The folks on the train platform across from the pub didn't even seem to register the earthquake, though, so it must have been pretty light close to the ground.

Update: The official earthquake website says it was a 4 at the epicenter and a 1 or lower in Kobe. Nothing to get too excited about.

Goodbye June, Hello July

Apparently this June was the hottest on record since the 60s. The months to come are getting similarly hot predictions. I'll be out of the country for most of August, but even September is shaping up to be torture. Ugh.

Along with the heat comes all the fabulous odor, constant damp state, extra strength viruses, mold, cockroaches and skin disease. Don't bother to try and console me with comments on how wonderful it must be for my skin. I learned better long ago.

The other seasons in Japan are so incredible, though, that I really shouldn't complain. To be honest, I have nothing to really complain about yet this season. I know full well that things will get much worse. We're just getting started. I am still able to wear my work clothes to work (they are 90% dry when I get there and 100% dry before class starts) and the air conditioning still has some effect in the classrooms and in our office. Muggy, hot days are mixed with less humid, breezy days and overcast muggy days with sporadic monsoon-esque water dumps.

Our first summer got to be incredibly miserable, with clothing completely soaked through within a few minutes of stepping outside and classrooms that were hotter than outdoors. All that year, people kept telling us that things had been much worse a few years before and we shouldn't complain.

I guess we're going to get a feel for what that's like after all.

If you don't approve of negative attitude, you may want to skip over my next few months of entries. Feel free to duck back in for August in the USA, though. Things will get back to normal (likely even extra positive) in October when things start to cool down again, too.