Saturday was the craziest typhoon ever. Or at least in the past 10 years, I'm told. I thought the rain Friday night was hard, but Saturday afternoon when Typhoon #22 hit, it was a new experience akin to feeling one's first earthquake. The howling winds brought heavy, dark clouds, and then the torrential rain started. Normally when it rains hard, one thinks, ok, this is too annoying to go out in. In the gale of a major typhoon, one worries about trees falling over and flood waters seeping under one's door.

Actually, if it hadn't been so nasty out, I would've been in at work, so I'm glad there was a typhoon. I spent most of the day sleeping instead. The trains were stopped most everywhere, and all planes were grounded. From about 15:00 to 18:00 was worst of the storm. The power went out a couple times, but came back on fairly quickly. Sachie had the news on, and we were watching other parts of Japan flooding. Then we got the bright idea to go check the river that runs right outside my apartment building. We actually went outside in that weather—for about five minutes, and we got soaked. The rain stung as it blew horizontally under our umbrellas. One of the tall evergreen shrubs outside had blown over across the walkway. From my front door we could see the boats tied to the bank, which are normally not visible. Then we went riverside and gaped at the water level, as it was within a couple meters of overflowing over the bank. Actually, the water level was probably the same height as ground floor on my place, because there are stairs leading down from the bank to my place. Sachie's Cub would've floated away. Even with the couple steps up to the front door plus the step up in the genkan, it would've been bad in my apartment. Good thing I have a second floor.

If I'm going to live this close to the coast, I'd better take those scuba lessons and keep some gear around the house! ...Now if I could only find time to do that stuff.... That and get a Japanese driver's license so I can get a car or a gentsuki.

Eventually the craziness subsided as the storm passed, so again Sachie and I ventured out to inspect the damage. The nameplate I'd made out front was all messed up due to the winds, but that was the extent of the damage to my place. There were shrub and tree pieces all over the walkway, the parking lot, and down the street. On the more main streets the water had aggregated the branch bits over the storm drains. It was deathly quiet out—everyone must've gone to sleep. I was hungry, so we went to the convenience store for some munchies. Of course it would be open. (There was nobody manning the store when we got there, and it was quiet inside, but eventually one guy came out of the back room, and then another guy came out about 5 minutes later. It was really suspicious.)

Sunday afternoon Sachie and I went over to Minami's to get our hair cut, but they were closed. Apparently the buildings on that street, between my place and the station, had flooded, and they were cleaning up, although I think it was their day off anyway. There was one place whose front door was below street level; they got completely soaked out. Some parts of Fujisawa got hit too: the first floor of a furniture store we went to there smelled wet and moldy. Typhoon #22 was no Hurricane Ivan, but it was the crisis in this part of the world.

The weather here has really gone crazy. Last week it rained all weekend, plus Monday—I thought it was the deluge starting up. The summer was horrendously hot, but then a couple weeks ago it cooled off tremendously. Wouldn't you know it'd be the year that I decide to live in Japan?