After the Typhoon

I didn't get any pictures of the typhoon because I still don't have a camera. The storm was a pretty awesome display of power on behalf of Mother Nature, though. The winds were blowing at 110mph and the eye of the storm was only 4 miles away. The speed with which the sheets of rain blew across the fields and parking lots was almost hypnotizing. When I stared long enough (it's easy to do when you have nothing but time), my mind would make images of giant ghosts running down and enveloping buildings and trees. At times the rain was so thick you couldn't see 100m in front of you. The parking lot in front of our building would flood, with some of the water coming into the first floor of the building (I'm on the 2d floor). When the rain retreated, so did the water. The whole process happened two or three times. As far as I could tell, there was no real damage from the storm besides some downed trees and signs. Like I mentioned in the last post, the buildings here are designed to withstand the frequent storms.

Overall, the typhoon was a really good time. The whole ordeal was a lot like the time we had the big earthquake in Hawaii. Something I took away from being forced to stay inside is how rare it is to have a day of doing absolutely nothing. There were no appointments or deadlines from anyone. Even if there were, we wouldn't know about them because we had no communications and couldn't leave the building. With the power out, we had no computers, video games, TV, movies, or other distractions. We couldn't go outside and all we had to entertain ourselves were books, a deck of cards, a homemade chess set, and... get this: talking.

There is something to be said for being constantly connected to the outside world, but there is even more to be said for the isolation from the world at large that we so rarely get to experience. Danny is my roommate from Hawaii, but he has been living in Japan for the past 9 months. I hadn't talked to him in quite some time. It was good to be able to catch up.

Playing chess was also fun. The last time I played was in Physics class in high school with Mike (made famous in thehalblog). Neither Danny nor I remembered if the Rooks (aka castles) or Bishops were on the outside of the board, so we just switched their position every game. We also focused on horseys making the L. Yeah, we're that good.

In the end, the storm passed and it has been raining every day since. To be honest, I preferred the storm to the constant rain. At least we didn't have to go to work.

I did purchase a camera as well. I went with the Panasonic DMC TZ3K. The two "must haves" for the purchase were 1. wide angle lens, and 2. image stabilization. This one had both, plus a lot of other cool features. I have no idea how long it will take for it to reach me here in Japan, but I ordered it yesterday (the price dropped $50 today for some reason. Maybe because I bought mine yesterday.). Hopefully I will be posting pictures of Japan soon.