Typhoon
I started this blog entry the day after the typhoon was technically over, but didn’t finish it until a week later, so have fun with the different tenses and time references!
At least down here on my bit of Honshu Island, the latest typhoon experience has ended. I woke up this morning to bright sunshine, bright blue skies and wisps of soft, brilliant white clouds, all things I have not seen for quite some time (or so it feels)! But the middle of the week was interesting. Although, for those of you looking for serious natural disaster drama, you’re not going to read about it here!
Why not? The region that I live in is arguably one of the safest in Japan. My particular prefecture (like a state) is one of the only landlocked prefectures in the country. Most of our borders are ringed by mountains. And wherever the fault lines lie underneath Japan’s islands, they apparently do not lie under Saitama (my prefecture). When there are earthquakes, we get the watered down aftershocks. When there are typhoons, we usually just get rain. And that’s pretty much what happened this time too. It had been rainy pretty much since the end of the previous week; nothing serious, just enough to keep the sports grounds too soggy for the baseball, tennis and track & field teams to do their thing outdoors. That is, until that Wednesday. It had been raining off and on all day…when I went home after school, I didn’t need my umbrella. When I left my house again 15 minutes later, I wished I’d had it open for my journey down the stairs to the car. I headed into Kawagoe, a city about an hour from my town, for a friend’s birthday party, and from the train station to the restaurant, I didn’t need my umbrella. Leaving the restaurant on the way to karaoke was either or. After karaoke was a yes, let’s take out them brellies. And as we sat waiting for the train at the end of the evening, I remember looking out across the tracks when it suddenly just started coming down, and I thought (and accidentally said outloud), “Here it comes.” By the time I got back to the station where my car was parked (about 2 hours later because there had been some sort of delay with the trains and the one we were waiting for didn’t come until midnight), it was raining buckets (although not as uncomfortable to drive in as I’ve ever experienced).
It continued to rain all night and into the early morning. The school officials met at 6am the next day (Thursday) and it was still raining pretty convincingly, so they decided to cancel classes for the students for the day. Of course the teachers still had to go to school (a rule I will NEVER understand) and by mid-morning, the rain had abated and it was actually getting sunny! By the afternoon, it was sunny, and even the sports fields looked like they were starting to dry out a bit. A few time clouds lingered over the mountains, but never came in to do anything more. The winds did pick up in the afternoon, which I thought was strange timing. But for the most part, that was our typhoon experience!
I didn’t understand why they were talking about canceling classes for this typhoon when it had never been a discussion for any other typhoon we’ve had since I’ve been here. It wasn’t until the day all the teachers were sitting around the teachers’ room without the students around, watching the news updates on TV about the typhoon when I saw the map of the typhoon directly over the middle of Japan that I understood why this typhoon had been given different consideration. I’d heard some people reference this typhoon as the worst for this area in the past 10 years, and I can see why. Although, because of our location on Honshu, I think we were spared the nastiness that other parts (especially the coastal areas) encountered.
So there you have it!
At least down here on my bit of Honshu Island, the latest typhoon experience has ended. I woke up this morning to bright sunshine, bright blue skies and wisps of soft, brilliant white clouds, all things I have not seen for quite some time (or so it feels)! But the middle of the week was interesting. Although, for those of you looking for serious natural disaster drama, you’re not going to read about it here!
Why not? The region that I live in is arguably one of the safest in Japan. My particular prefecture (like a state) is one of the only landlocked prefectures in the country. Most of our borders are ringed by mountains. And wherever the fault lines lie underneath Japan’s islands, they apparently do not lie under Saitama (my prefecture). When there are earthquakes, we get the watered down aftershocks. When there are typhoons, we usually just get rain. And that’s pretty much what happened this time too. It had been rainy pretty much since the end of the previous week; nothing serious, just enough to keep the sports grounds too soggy for the baseball, tennis and track & field teams to do their thing outdoors. That is, until that Wednesday. It had been raining off and on all day…when I went home after school, I didn’t need my umbrella. When I left my house again 15 minutes later, I wished I’d had it open for my journey down the stairs to the car. I headed into Kawagoe, a city about an hour from my town, for a friend’s birthday party, and from the train station to the restaurant, I didn’t need my umbrella. Leaving the restaurant on the way to karaoke was either or. After karaoke was a yes, let’s take out them brellies. And as we sat waiting for the train at the end of the evening, I remember looking out across the tracks when it suddenly just started coming down, and I thought (and accidentally said outloud), “Here it comes.” By the time I got back to the station where my car was parked (about 2 hours later because there had been some sort of delay with the trains and the one we were waiting for didn’t come until midnight), it was raining buckets (although not as uncomfortable to drive in as I’ve ever experienced).
It continued to rain all night and into the early morning. The school officials met at 6am the next day (Thursday) and it was still raining pretty convincingly, so they decided to cancel classes for the students for the day. Of course the teachers still had to go to school (a rule I will NEVER understand) and by mid-morning, the rain had abated and it was actually getting sunny! By the afternoon, it was sunny, and even the sports fields looked like they were starting to dry out a bit. A few time clouds lingered over the mountains, but never came in to do anything more. The winds did pick up in the afternoon, which I thought was strange timing. But for the most part, that was our typhoon experience!
I didn’t understand why they were talking about canceling classes for this typhoon when it had never been a discussion for any other typhoon we’ve had since I’ve been here. It wasn’t until the day all the teachers were sitting around the teachers’ room without the students around, watching the news updates on TV about the typhoon when I saw the map of the typhoon directly over the middle of Japan that I understood why this typhoon had been given different consideration. I’d heard some people reference this typhoon as the worst for this area in the past 10 years, and I can see why. Although, because of our location on Honshu, I think we were spared the nastiness that other parts (especially the coastal areas) encountered.
So there you have it!
posted by Mandy | 1:05 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home