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Published: August 5th 2007
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Who said Japan was a safe country? In one week Japan was hit by a typhoon and major earthquake!!! Well apart from natural disasters, which aren't too uncommon, I feel very safe living here.
Eye of the Typhoon
Apparently the first part of the typhoon hit overnight, and the next day we saw the effects of it, the beach was all churned up and the Abe River was the fullest I have ever seen it, usually only but a small stream is flowing! The weather began to clear a little and Mario remembered a place with a ship on the other side of the river. He then forgot where it was exactly, so after a few times going back and forth over the bridge, we finally found it - a very random, but cool park with a pirate ship made for climbing on. The sky magically cleared and we thought we were maybe in the eye of the typhoon. Mario even asked a Japanese man and he said that we
were in fact in the middle of it! This probably explained why the park was totally deserted - Japanese people freak out about everything! (remember the tsunami warnings last
year, then the 'tsunami' ended up being only 20cm??!!) So we enjoyed the sun while it lasted, and lasted, and lasted (worst sunburn in a while too). We soon began to wonder when the other side of the typhoon would hit. The sky did turn grey again, but there was no more torrential rain or strong winds...so finally I am not really sure what happened, (the typhoon weakened?) but I do like to think we were in the middle of it!
Story of the Good Samaritan
Mario's friends from the nursery came to my place for dinner one night and as we had been drinking, they had to catch a taxi home...but how to do this from my place, which is seemingly in the middle of nowhere, was a difficult question! It was 11:30pm so we walked to the bus stop to see if any cabs were hanging around there (the buses had stopped by then). On the way, we stopped an old man going for his midnight walk(?), to ask if he knew the number for a taxi company. He was all too willing, and begun calling a directory service from his mobile phone. This is when
Mario, me and Maarten
Maarten has gone back home to The Netherlands, but Mario and I will see him in Belgium in September! the first funny thing happened, he started memorising the number by repeating it to himself out loud while he was listening to the recording. I would never be able to do that! As we were a little tipsy, we thought it was hilarious - Maarten even had to walk away as he was in hysterics! Ok, you had to be there! So then this old man rang the taxi company for us and described where we were. The person on the phone was telling him that he had to wait with us (because we did not have a phone that they could contact us on). They also said the taxi would take about 30 minutes...so the man told them to cancel the taxi...he would take them himself!!! Hahaha who does that? He hung up, and told us to wait while he walked home to get his car! He was serious! So we waited, and while we waited I ran home to get my camera, so I could take a picture to remember this funny story! What a kind man, he took Maarten and Patti home without a hassle; they even had a good chat about his family! Since that night,
Mario and I have seen him walking at night and stopped to chat with him!
Kindy Fun
It's summer session at kind at the moment which means I finish at 11:30am, only have 7 kids and just do activities, go to the playground and have water play outside! We still had afternoon/evening tuition lessons, but it is really starting to feel like holidays. Just one more week of kindy then two weeks off!!!!!
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mum
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great photos again!
can't believe you got up at 7am after all that drinking last night! just telling dad of your plans and he said 'omg we've lost her' ! but you'll be back (you promised!). just glad you are having a ball - and may all your problems be little problems. love mum xxx