This morning I was up early to fry up some pork and have it with some eggs and green peppers, working to fight off my mild hangover. At eight o’clock we had the community cleanup duty, and it was Jane’s first experience with that. She was surprised at first, but soon warmed up to it. The very helpful tea lady that used to be at my school has been helping Jane out a little bit, so I was glad to see she was in good hands.

The cleanup went by quickly and easily, and I went back home to clean up and get ready for my hike.

A couple of weeks ago one of my ex-students had invited me to come visit her at her new job, flipping burgers at the Japanese hamburger chain, MOSBurger. Today I was planning a hike that took me near there, so I decided to drop in.

The place was near Hoden station, just a few blocks away. I had to ask directions from a guy running a makeshift fruit stand, and everyone in the fruit stand stopped to watch and see what I wanted. When I said a burger place, they nodded their heads as if they had suspected all along.

I saw Haruna working the cash register when I got there, but I got called to another line, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. She smiled and said hello when she saw me, but I get the impression that they’re pretty strict there. She didn’t have any chance to come over and chat. I enjoyed the burger, though. I made the trip back to the train station and on my way home stopped into Carrefour for some specialty supplies.

I’m getting ready to go to Osaka to spend some time with Kuniko. She’s got to work tomorrow, so I’m not sure what I’ll do on Sunday. The master wants me to come play on his volleyball team, but the timing might be tough. We’ll see what happens!

Today was a busy day at school. Mr. Hayashi told me that one of his best friends from childhood died the night before. Apparently he was riding along on his bike and he had an aneurysm and that was it. Mr. Hayashi said that he was always a guy that was under a lot of self-induced stress, so that’s probably what did it. Mr. Hayashi was remarkably cavalier about it, and he wasn’t letting it ruin his day.

I asked and received permission to sneak out a little early from work, and used that time to get on the train and head to Takarazuka, Antoine’s home town. He met me at the station, and showed me around town. He has a nice house, not an apartment like I have. The place was a decent size, and he had a nice giant refrigerator, which is ironic because he doesn’t cook. We didn’t spend much time looking at his place.

After seeing his digs we went to a yakitori that he used to frequent every Wednesday. We sat down and I let Antoine do all the ordering and talking, in loud English. He did a good job of getting his point across, and the master and his assistant looked amused as they took our orders. We ate lots of food, quite a bit of it fried, but it was delicious.

Antoine asked the master of that yakitori about one of the other regulars, a doctor that would come in to chat with Antoine in English. The master gave the doctor a call, and within a few minutes, he was hanging out with us. He brought a huge bottle of shou-chu to drink, and even gave us a couple of glasses. It was very good, it actually had some flavor.

Moving down the street from the yakitori we stopped at another bar that was billed as “American Style”. They served Miller beer, had lots of Americana hanging on the walls, and a dark wooden interior. It was called “Rag Shack”. I had a Negra Modelo and a Guinness, and we sat around and talked about Antoine and his new girlfriend.

Finally, around ten o’clock I decided it was time to hit the road, and I was home by midnight. It was fun to finally see the town where Antoine is from, and to meet some of the folks he hangs out with. Nice people.

The nice thing about my Thursdays is that I have the first three classes, and then I’m free the rest of the day. My classes went just fine, actually. The third year class that I have with Mr. Hayashi has been interesting. At first I just helped out with various English subtleties, but lately Mr. Hayashi has been using the class to help me study Japanese.

Mr. Hayashi will write sentences in Japanese on the blackboard, and then ask the students to write the translation in English in their notebooks. After giving them time, he’ll ask me to translate the sentences into English. Sometimes I don’t know a kanji, or I’ll get it wrong, but mostly I get them correct. The students take it as a matter of course, but there’s a little pressure in there, and it makes it a good way for me to learn translations.

Besides the class, Mr. Hayashi is also helping me with sentence translations. I do the translations, and then he checks them and offers suggestions. At first I was always trying to literally translate everything, but the more I relax and just try to get the idea, the better I seem to do. Translation is an interesting skill – looking for all the right clues in the text and providing the proper nuances, trying to guess the tone from the context, and just getting the idea across.

After lunch a student came to my desk and started stuttering before I realized who it was, the pervert-in-training from my class yesterday. He apologized in English for drawing the picture, and turned tail to run. Before he could get far his homeroom teacher laid into him a little bit more, and then Oki sensei decided to get in some kicks while the poor kid was down. I felt bad, because I had initiated the whole thing by making a comment to the teacher. Now the kid will probably hate me for life, but at least he’ll think twice about female anatomical illustrations during class time.

The ESS club met after school, but only a few of the students showed up. I gave them my omiyage from my trip to America, and the Spongebob Squarepants backpack clips from Walmart were treated like religious icons. Worth their weight in gold, they were. I also had a new student join the club. She had been on the trip to Australia, and while she was there she met a Chinese student doing a homestay. She said that he is now her boyfriend, and they use English to communicate since neither can speak each other’s language. Sometimes it takes a little love to realize how important learning another language can be.

After school I came home and cooked up the best damn yakisoba I’ve ever made. Noodles, mushrooms, onions, strips of pork, sesame seeds, and the obligatory hard boiled egg on top made for a top notch dinner. I had a salad on the side with a sesame dressing that I can’t get enough of.

I talked with Antoine on the phone and we arranged a plan for tomorrow night. I’m going to head to Takarazuka to meet him in his ‘hood – the first time in a year that I’ve actually seen his digs. We’re going to a yakitori that he frequents, and just hang out a little bit. It’ll be a short trip, since the last train leaves around 10:30 p.m.

Wednesday and Thursday are my easy days, with only three classes each day. Today all my classes went really well. I’ve decided that in the class that I teach alone, I will try to use more Japanese to explain some concepts. I used quite a bit today and it worked really well. The students paid a little more attention and were more patient with my English questions.

During my first year class, one of the boys in the class was impressing his friends by drawing a picture of a naked woman, and the attention to detail was startling. He asked me what I thought of it and I explained in Japanese that drawing something like that was not appropriate for the classroom. He looked nervous but still kept at it. After class I mentioned it to the very stern Ms. Terano, and she said she’d have a talk with him. He’s going to love that little chat.

I spent a lot more time today walking around and chatting with students instead of hiding in the teacher’s room studying. As usual it’s good for the students to have a chance to chat in a non-classroom environment, and it’s good for my ego to leave a trail of giggling girls everywhere I go.

After school I stopped in to do a shopping trip at my local grocery. It’s probably one of the last few times that I’ll shop there. Ito Yokado will open up in a couple of weeks, so the little grocery store will be obsolete. Don’t shed a tear for them, though. Today they were out of orange juice and chicken. I made do with shrimp and grape juice, but it’ll be nice to shop at a place that has what you want, every time.

It was shrimp (instead of chicken) curry and rice tonight, and some listening comprehension homework for dessert. I did a little cleanup after the big storm yesterday, chatted with Kuniko via e-mail, and had a nice quiet evening. Tomorrow is another easy day for me, and the weekend is fast approaching.

Today was the big day for the next typhoon. In Japan they give them names and numbers, and this one was number 18. It was billed as bigger than the last one, which rearranged everything on my patio. Not surprisingly, students didn’t have to come to school today. Unfortunately, the teachers did.

Everybody was happy about the typhoon, because that meant that we didn’t have to teach classes. The students are happy, the teachers are happy, and because it’s a “natural phenomenon” we don’t have to make up the day later on. Excellent!

The bad news was the the dirt from our baseball and soccer field (fields are sand, not grass) was kicking up in the heavy winds, and a neighbor complained. The principal announced that we would take steps to try to reduce the dirt flying around. His plan:

We were to go out on the field carrying a firehose and try to wet the thing down in typhoon force winds. Yeah, good idea. One teacher even objected out loud during the announcement, something that is very non-Japanese. The other teachers looked at him like he had snapped.

We went out there and did our best, drenching each other in the process and I’ve still got sand in my hair, ears, and eyes. Yuck. We walked around with a couple of hoses for about fifteen minutes, hopefully appeasing the neighbor. Then we all went inside and had a staff meeting to talk about October’s events.

Mr. Hayashi suggested that we go over to the local coffee shop for lunch and kill some time over there. By the time we got back, everyone was leaving, and the winds were getting even stronger. They said that Sanyo train line had stopped running, so Mr. Hayashi drove me home. What a nice guy!

I arranged some things out on my patio to prepare – I lashed down my wooden plant rack with an extension cord to keep it from leaving the balcony area. I called my folks and chatted with them for a while. It had been a while since I talked to them and it was good to catch up.

During the afternoon I studied transitive and intransitive verbs, watched a movie I had downloaded from the internet (Liar, Liar), and talked with Kuniko on the phone. Throughout the evening the wind was howling outside, and a couple of times it got louder than I thought it could ever be. Not much rain, just heavy, heavy wind. I went out on the patio twice to recover some things, but most of what was going to blow away went during the last typhoon.

I’m headed to bed – it’s extremely humid right now so I’ve got the bedroom chilling and drying – can’t wait to get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow will no doubt be a cleanup day at school.

Today was back to work and everybody was talking about the earthquakes. What’s better, tomorrow a new typhoon is supposed to blow in that is as strong or stronger as the last one. Nobody is sure if we’ll even have classes tomorrow, but my prediction is that we will. The typhoon seems to be moving slowly enough that we should be OK.

I had a busy day with four classes. They went pretty well, and the students were paying fairly good attention considering all the distractions that nature has been providing lately. Some of my students said that they had seen me with a girl at a movie theater, and they asked if it was my girlfriend. I played dumb and said that it might not have been me, or that maybe it was an ALT friend. I guess they didn’t identify Kuniko, so her identity is protected.

Mr. Hayashi told me that a student’s mother had seen me with a girl somewhere, and he asked me all about that. A couple of weeks ago he was sure I was gay, now he’s sure that I’m hiding something good. He seems to be patient about rooting out the information. I think he figures that time is on his side, and he’s right.

After school I went across the street to practice Japanese and English with Tsuji-san. She helped me with some new verb conjugations, and I helped her with pronunciation. Next week she’ll be in Hokkaido sightseeing, so I’ll have next Monday off.

I got out of there around 6:30, and went home to rustle up some dinner. I made koyadofu for the first time, guessing from the back of a box and trying to read some of the Japanese. I ended up doing OK, but there’s something I’m missing. The flavor was good, but the texture was a bit too firm. I’ll try again tomorrow night.

I finally caught up on some e-mail, and now I’m headed to bed. Tomorrow may be an easy half day to weather the storm, or a regular day with a wild windy night. We’ll see what happens.

Just had another earthquake here as I was trying to fall asleep. This one seemed longer and stronger than the other one. Everything is OK – hopefully no more before tomorrow!

We woke up early, but then went right back to sleep and managed to stretch out the morning until about 10:30. We had a breakfast of granola and orange juice, and then listened to an English radio show on NHK. Kuniko listens every weekend, and also tapes it to practice with later. I wish they had something like that for Japanese learners!

After the show we decided to go into Osaka. We were both looking for some books, and they have a gigantic bookstore inside the Hankyu building in Umeda. We jumped on the train, and then took a short walk over to the Hankyu building. Umeda was crowded, and as usual it was tough to walk around with so many people. Kind of like walking around in Disneyland, except it’s everywhere.

We went to the bookstore and found the books that Kuniko was looking for, but I struck out in my search. I decided to try to find them online. We both started to get a little hungry while walking around, and Kuniko suggested a sushi place that her co-workers took her to a week ago. I agreed – I’m always up for good sushi.

If you’re ever in Japan, the best experiences you’ll ever have will come when you allow a Japanese person to show you around. Kuniko took my hand and we walked through busy shopping malls, down strange alleyways filled with neon and noise, and finally to a busy street that had lots of restaurants. We ducked into a certain sushi place, and sat down at the bar.

We ordered up some beers, and I asked what Kuniko recommended. She told me about the choices, and she said that they have some exotic sushi there that is kind of rare. The one that got my attention – horse.

A long time ago I had heard a story about a guy that ordered sushi based on pointing at the menu and had gotten horsemeat. I always thought it was an urban legend, especially since I’ve never seen horse on any menu in any sushi restaurant that I’ve been to. Kuniko pointed to the menu, and there it was. 700 yen for two raw pieces. Sure, order up!

We had lots of other sushi first, and then the guy came over with the raw horsemeat on sushi rice. In my mind I had expected a bloody chunk of flesh, but it just looked like a piece of beef. It wasn’t quite raw, either – it had been cooked ever so slightly. I picked it up with my chopsticks, dipped it in a little soy sauce, and ate it.

Hmmm… actually, it tasted a lot like beef. The flavor was a little different, the meat was tender because it was uncooked, and altogether I gave it a thumbs up. I’m not sure I’d order it every day, but it was tasty. I told Kuniko later about what happens to horsemeat in America, and she was impressed that I had even tried it.

After that we had some more sushi, raw shrimp, crab rolls, and tuna. We were pretty full, so we settled up the bill and hit the road. Back home we were both so tired that we laid down to rest for a few minutes and ended up sleeping for about an hour.

I helped Kuniko by checking her transcription of last week’s radio news, and then I packed up my stuff and made for the station. It was a great weekend, and since next weekend is likely to be very busy for her, it might be a while before I see her again.

On the way to Shin-Osaka station it started pouring rain – seriously pouring. I got caught in it, and ended up getting on my train dripping wet. Luckily I got a seat right away and sat next to a very friendly guy that didn’t mind chatting with me in simple Japanese.

Just after the train passed Sannomiya station heading west towards my town, we suddenly stopped. The train rolled to a complete stop, and I was surprised how jerky the stop was. We were stopped, but the jerking of the car continued – people started murmuring in alarm and I looked outside and realized that we were having an earthquake.

This was a pretty good sized earthquake. Usually when there’s an earthquake you can run for your life, but in a train car your options are limited. I just kind of watched what I could see outside in the dark – the buildings weren’t moving, but the wires and trees were shaking quite a bit. After about thirty seconds of shaking, it stopped.

The conductor of the train came on and gave an announcement, but I could only understand a little bit. These are the situations when not knowing enough Japanese really hurts – he might be saying that we’ll be spending the night in the train car and I wouldn’t know.

Luckily, the nice man next to me told me that we would have to wait for about 15 minutes so they could check the rails and make sure that everything was OK. I wondered vaguely how they check the rails – there’s a lot of mileage between stations. However, 15 minutes later we were on the move. No problem – I caught the Sanyo train line from Akashi and now I’m home safe. The first thing I did was call Kuniko, and she said that she really felt it. She’s OK, but she was worried about me.

The website that I read said that it was a 6.8 on the Richter scale, centered somewhere in the Kansai area. I’ll probably hear more details tomorrow at school.

I got plenty of rest last night, and woke up refreshed and ready to eat in the morning. I made myself a big Denver style omelete, and got ready to head over to visit the old man in Takasago that I had agreed to meet. Before I left I stopped by Jane’s apartment and helped her move some furniture around. We managed to get things the way she wanted, and I made a few phone calls for her in Japanese to arrange her internet connection. Then I had a quick lunch and headed to Takasago.

At the station I met the lady who asked me about this initially. We soon were met by another lady who drove us to pick up yet a third lady. As we were driving around collecting people I started to wonder if I understood correctly about chatting with an old guy. Was that just a ploy to get me in the car? Am I going to be sold into white slavery?

Turns out the next stop was at a private home, and when we went in, I met the old guy in question. He had a stroke about a year ago, so half his body wasn’t working too well, but he spoke a little bit of English and he wanted to try it out on me. We sat down around the table and chatted.

Everyone was very nice, and they kept me eating tea, coffee, fruit, cookies, everything. The wife was bustling around in the kitchen keeping us set up with food and drink while we chatted in the living room. He had lots of questions. We even pulled out the Japanese calligraphy gear to do a little calligraphy. It was fun to try it out – I’ve never really done it before. Everyone said “oooohh” and “aaaaahhh” while I wrote kanji like 高砂 and 教職.

We had a great time, but as we continued we started getting into more difficult topics like Japanese whaling and birth control (two separate topics, actually). The more complex stuff meant that they had to resort to Japanese to explain their ideas to me, and that was just too tough to understand. After about three hours, I apologized and said that I had to get going.

They dropped me off at the station, and everyone was really happy with how it went. I thought it was fun, something that made everyone happy.

Kuniko gave me a call after she got home from work, and invited me to come over and hang out at her place for the weekend. I was on a train ten minutes later and pulled into Osaka one hour after that.

She was exhausted from working on Saturday, and so we decided to get a pizza (spicy jalapeno pizza!) and watch a movie that one of her co-workers lent her, The Rock. It’s kind of a body count movie, and watching it again through Kuniko’s eyes was an interesting experience. I would cringe as the bodies would stack up.

We were off to bed after that. I think we were both so tired for different reasons.

Friday means a whole lot more when you’ve actually been working all week. Today I had three classes that I taught, and one Japanese class from Mr. Hayashi. It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to do a lesson, but I think it went better than usual. Still, I found some words that I should have recognized but didn’t.

The classes went well, but I was definitely ready to hit the road around five o’clock. I went to my last YMCA Japanese class in Sannomiya, and learned a couple of new tricks. The class is down to just a couple of people, a far cry from the big group we had when we started. They have one more class on Monday, but I’m starting a regular lesson with Tsuji-san, so I’ll be busy.

I skipped the usual ramen stop in Sannomiya and went home instead. I changed clothes and walked down to the yakitori. I had a good chat with the master, lots of chicken, and a couple of beers. His big sign over the front of his shop was torn off during the last typhoon. He said that this weekend he’ll be getting it replaced. He also invited me to a volleyball tournament that several of the regulars are participating in. I don’t know if I’ll be able to go – it’s pretty far away and only accessible by car.

He also said that they broke down and opened the bottle of wine that my mom had sent along from Bartholomew Park, a late harvest zinfandel. He said it was great – he opened it with some of the members of the softball team. The image of a bunch of athletic Japanese guys sitting around a yakitori quaffing Bart Park zin is stuck in my head – too funny.

Around midnight I got home and had a glass of port before hitting the sack. Tomorrow I’m going to meet up with an older guy that wants to practice English in Takasago. Should be interesting.

Today I got a late start for school because my bed felt so good. The good news is that my late is still other people’s early, and I had plenty of time to spare.

At school I got a chance to chat with Ms. Miyake, who is always fun to talk to. After giving me some advice about proposing to Kuniko, she’s been dying to tell people about it. I’m a little worried that she might let it slip. Talking today she told me that she almost told Andy’s (my predecessor) wife Michelle about it. Andy is still in touch with lots of teachers here, so that will almost certainly spill the beans. I explained that we’d like to keep it under wraps for just a few more months, and I hope she’ll be able to do it.

Because we had exams for some of the students, I had only one class today. I spent most of my time preparing for tomorrow’s busier day. After lunch I had finished what I needed to do, so I spent the second half of the day, about four hours, studying Japanese.

I also got to chat with one of the part time teachers that I don’t know very well. I haven’t talked to her since well before summer, and she mentioned that she thought my Japanese had improved since last time we talked. I was happy to hear that – lots of hours without some positive feedback once in a while is tough. It occurred to me today that I’ve been studying Japanese for two years now. That seems like a long time, considering I still can’t speak it very well.

After school I caught the train home, and then knocked on my neighbor’s door. During the typhoon lots of their junk blew onto my patio, so I put it all in a box and delivered it to them.

The funny thing about knocking on a door in Japan is that people will ask who is there and want to know more information before opening the door and greeting you. The result is that part of your conversation is clearly heard by your neighbors.

Anyway, the wife speaks a little English, so we chatted in English for a while. She was excited to get the chance to talk. I still can’t get over how great it feels to be able to make so many people happy by doing something as simple as smiling and chatting.

It was leftover night tonight, but tomorrow is my last Japanese class at the YMCA in Kobe. I don’t have lots of money to buy a Kobe steak to celebrate, but maybe I’ll get the big bowl of ramen instead.

Today was my first full day back at school. It was a little hard to get used to sticking around for the whole day, after a whole summer of abbreviated workdays. All the students were in today, but they didn’t have classes – just a couple of homerooms, a cleaning session, and a long ceremony full of speeches and sub-ceremonies.

I worked for about an hour of my day on class preparation. I chatted with various people for about an hour. The rest of my day was studying Japanese. I’m hitting the books hard in preparation for the big test in December, and today was pretty useful. Japanese adverbs are pretty tough to get my brain around.

Around four o’clock teachers started sneaking out – it’s their last day to do so before school really starts. I had plans to meet my new Japanese tutor at 5 p.m., so I just watched them go. I swear they even looked a little guilty.

I met my new teacher, Tsuji-san, outside the gates to my school. She lives right across the street, so it’s easy to drop by when I get off work. I’ll be visiting for about an hour and a half each week on Monday. She’s a private English teacher, and she’s hoping to pick up some American English from me. In fact, we worked out an arrangement where we would switch languages back and forth, and that way I don’t have to pay her for her time.

We sat in a very Japanese style room, surrounded by kids books since she teaches elementary school and junior high school students part time. Her English is quite good, better than some of our teachers. She’s 31, and got her major in Portuguese. She is also studying Spanish, as well as English. I wish I could remember some more of the Spanish that I knew, but so much is gone. Maybe I’ll pick up a Spanish textbook sometime and see what happens.

Anyway, we spent about an hour and a half chatting, and during that time her father and mother made an appearance to say hello. The mother brought two iced coffees for us to drink while we were working, and some assorted chocolates to snack on. Wow! I think it will be useful to be there, since my YMCA classes are ending soon.

I had a semi-traditional Japanese dinner tonight, rice and some green vegetables and Nagano chili peppers soaked in some soy sauce. To make it more non-traditional I had a side of kimchee with it. Tomorrow is my first class, and then on Friday I get really busy.

So I went off to school this morning, walking around the debris all over the ground. Some intrepid homeowners were already out cleaning up, and the Ito Yokado construction site was already being repaired and replaced. What a mess!

At school I arrived early and got assigned to a cleanup crew. We worked outside for an hour or so, and during that time some strange looking mosquito bit me on the face three times, and the arm twice. I went to the nurse afterwards for some ointment, and that seemed to do the trick.

Today at school there were still no classes, and none tomorrow either. The students didn’t come today, but they’ll be there tomorrow for the opening ceremony, the speeches, and a homeroom class. My first classes will be on Thursday.

We did have a staff meeting today, and it was a perfect illustration of the Japanese meeting. We all went inside and sat down, and the principal, vice principal, and other staff stood up in turn to make announcements and speeches. I’ve been to a lot of these meetings, and it’s always the same. The teachers don’t hide their boredom, and the speakers don’t seem to care if anyone is listening or not.

The best part about today’s meeting was about halfway through, the groundskeeper was cleaning up outside the open windows, and started up a chainsaw to cut up some bigger branches that had fallen. Nobody could hear anything – maybe not even the speaker. I waited for him to stop and go ask the groundskeeper to hold off for half an hour, but he didn’t. He just kept on talking.

What’s better, the reactions of the teachers didn’t change at all either. Listen to a boring speech, listen to a chainsaw, either is fine.

Anyway, there’s this whole idea in Japan that it’s not the content of the meeting, it’s that there IS a meeting. It’s not the amount of work you do, it’s the fact that you showed up. Meetings seem to be largely ceremonial, and they certainly won’t let something like a chainsaw get in the way of getting the meeting over with.

I got to leave school a bit early, thanks to Mr. Hayashi, who told everyone that we were going back to the doctor (even though it was really just him and Mr. Komuri). I went home and called Kuniko, who was getting ready to leave school and go home to watch a DVD somebody had loaned her. I kind of invited myself over to help her eat dinner and watch the movie, and so we had a great evening in Osaka. I got there around 5:30, and left around 9:30. It’s an expensive trip for me, but every once in a while you’ve got to do something a little wild on a school night.

I should really be getting to bed – I’ve got to be up early tomorrow!

It’s Tuesday morning, and I’m still here! My power went out last night until around 2 a.m. so I was working by candlelight. The streets are a mess, and so is my patio. I have to go to school now, so I’ll have to clean it up later. I’ll write more later!

We woke up early this morning because Kuniko had to go to work. We were both kind of hoping that the typhoon would come early and she’d get a day off, but it was running late, so she had to go. Bummer!

I headed up on the train to Kobe, and then had a snack at McDonald’s while I waited for the CD store to open. When it did I exchanged my CDs, and headed back to Kuniko’s empty place and slipped the new CD in her mailbox. At least she’ll get to listen to it tonight.

From there I headed back, well ahead of any signs of typhoon. The skies were calm, and it was just a bit windy, but nothing to worry about.

I talked to my folks on the phone, and spent the afternoon relaxing and doing some pleasure reading. I secured some items out on my balcony, just in case. For dinner I made three or four rice balls that turned out nicely.

Then the typhoon arrived.

Holy crap! Even now it’s blowing harder than any wind I’ve ever seen. Lots of junk from my neighbor’s balcony is landing in mine, and every once in a while you can hear sirens from emergency vehicles. I went outside on my porch to check it out, but I could barely get the door open, and when I was out there, lots of leaves and branches were flying around. I think I’ll stay inside until things calm down.

I sent off a message to Kuniko to see how she was doing – I imagined her holed up in her place like me, but she had gotten off work and was going drinking with some of her co-workers. It’s just a typhoon, nothing to get worked up about. I guess I would probably act the same about an earthquake.

Well, it’s blowing like crazy and I should probably save this entry before the power goes out. See you in Oz!