Typhoon

Today I experienced my first typhoon. This storm hit Japan a couple days ago and is pretty much on a path over most of the country. (I think the southern islands of Kyushu and Shukoku missed out). The storm has been moving very slowly, so yesterday we were all anticipating it. Yesterday there were high winds here and people kept looking out the window as if they would be able to see the typhoon approaching.

Yesterday I told people that this would be my very first typhoon. Everyone was shocked! I guess if you live in a country that consists entirely of islands in the middle of the ocean, it’s difficult to imagine places that are unaffected by ocean weather. One of the English teachers even had a stereotypical Japanese television reaction: ‘eeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaah?’ But I explained that Chicago is very far inland so we don’t have typhoons, which incidentally are called hurricanes in the Western hemisphere. And no, I’ve never experienced a hurricane either.

This morning one of the English teachers called to inform me that the weather was too severe for the students to come to school. So they get to stay home, safe and dry. But the teachers still had to come in, so here I am, blogging in the teachers room. I looked out the window, and thought ‘you’ve got to be kidding me. I have to go out in this shit.’ But I’m a trooper, so I put on my raincoat and grabbed my umbrella. School is a 15 minute or so walk from my house. I was immediately soaked, because no matter which way I held my umbrella, the wind changed directions and I got soaked. My umbrella kept alternately flipping inside out and bending far more than those metal stays are meant to bend. The last 5 minutes or so, I was holding the umbrella straight out, parallel to the ground instead of over my head, because that’s how the wind and rain were blowing. I got to school with my pants completely soaked through. I actually wrung them out in the sink. It’s a good thing I had a pair of sweats at school. My umbrella broke because of the wind. The fabric ripped off two of the stays.

Typhoons blow!