Thursday, October 21st

Wow, heavy-duty typhoon hit yesterday. School was cancelled although the teachers are still required to come to work. We all left after lunch. I went to a shopping center 1/2-hour bus ride from my mountain apartment. Around 3:30pm i noticed that the crowds in the stores were really thinning out. I went outside to catch a bus and watched the rain go from "cats and dogs" to "buckets" to "good grief, i can't see across the street" type of torrential rains. The bus ride back to the apartment was exciting. I discovered today that the stores closed at 4pm and if i had tried to go back to Nishinomiya that the trains were stopped, and i would have been out of luck. The peaceful, tiny Arima River was raging and i got so much water in my shoes walking from the bus stop to the apartment that they dripped all night and i wore wet shoes to work this morning. hee, hee
I guess i shouldn't joke. Over 50 people lost their lives in this storm near Tokyo.

Saturday, October 23rd
I jogged along the Shukugawa this morning and was surprised to see many downed branches. Nature has a powerful way of doing some serious pruning on these trees. Kinda scary.