what do you see?

Well the typhoon finally hit our area at about 2am - very windy and rainy until about 3.30am. I know, because I spent the time sitting watching TV. This was probably the weirdest experience yet - the middle of the night in a dark room, metal shutters rattling loudly, watching a documentary about Cornwall with very soft background music...

No damage in our area, but Western Japan had lots of flooding, wrecked houses etc.


Kamakura again on Monday - this time the West side with the Great Buddha - a huge bronze statue cast in the 1200s, originally within a large temple...this unfortunately got swept away by a tidal wave in the 1400s and since then the Buddha's been exposed to the elements. Pretty amazing.
Went to the beach again, being lashed by big waves. Lots of surfers in the water and also boarding up their temporary wooden bars on the beach in preparation for typhoon 7. This hit on Tuesday lunchtime, but was virtually nothing at all in comparison to number 6.

We have 3 days off now - not sure of plans yet, but will try to update soon...

Went to Harajuku on Sunday - the place you might have seen on TV where all the teenagers dress up crazy and hang around. Very interesting place. The area itself is much more hilly and low rise than some other parts of Tokyo, with some old apartment buildings (from the 20s) covered in ivy. The traditional thing to do is stand around and eat crepes, so of course we did (ever had a crepe with a big chunk of caramel cheescake in it, as well as icecream and cream?!) after we'd been to a convenient conveyor belt sushi shop.

"Typhoon number 6" (official name) is currently just off the coast of Japan, well to the southwest of us, but already causing a lot of flooding etc. ...it's scheduled to hit our region sometime tonight and dump about 150-200mm of rain! It should be gone by tomorrow though. So, I'll let you know how we get on...

Correction - it was 32C/89.5F yesterday. Today is a refreshing 27C/80F but still humid enough to have you sweating like a pig after the 10 minute stroll to the station, before you get chilled by the powerful AC in the train...

Well we're deep into rainy season now, finally managed to do some laundry after a week and a half of bad weather - either pouring rain or very high humidity so the air was filled with moisture...lovely! Today is hot and humid, but sunny, about 28C/82F.

Not much news from the past couple of weeks - we've been trying to stay cool, eating plenty of rice and drinking plenty of sours, doing some shopping at the Y100 stores and continuing to get used to our students...


On Monday we went to Asakusa, a very touristy and historical part of Tokyo. Some very large and unusual temples, and fascinating shopping streets selling food mostly (no surprise really!). There are also some huge temple gates, the most famous being Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate) which has a 10ft high red paper lantern hanging from it. If you stray outside the main tourist drag, there are some really interesting old run-down streets, and a small theme part, which boasts the oldest steel rollercoaster in the world.
We decided not to risk our lives this week...

Tracked down (when I say that I'm descrbing the usual process of finding something in Tokyo when all you have is an address and an incorrect/non-existent map:go to the rough area near the nearest subway station, and start walking in circles hoping to find some pattern in the numbered blocks, before realising you've strayed to completely the wrong area, retracing your steps and eventually randomly stumbling on what you want just a few yards from where you originally started - it takes on average about 30-40 minutes, but somehow makes it more satisfying) a really nice cafe/bar. It's housed in an old wooden warehouse building, from 1868 (!!) which somehow survied the earthquake and fires, and the bombing of WWII. The woman who owns it with her sisters let us have a private tour of the gallery where they were setting up the next show, after we had had our coffee and cake (something they do really well in Tokyo). We'll be back there soon...see http://www.tctv.ne.jp/get2-ef/e-index.htm for more including a photograph from 1945 showing the building standing, with not much else surviving around it.

OK, I'm off into the wet oven of Ichikawa. I promise I'll write again soon!!!